


Ice Man

by ladysassafrass



Series: Where Thou Art [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Between Seasons/Series, Depression, Everything Hurts, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Handcuffs get involved, Hurt, IT'S LONG, M/M, POV John Watson, Post-Reichenbach, Series 3 trailer, Spoilers, What's John doing in the restaurant?, depends on your goggles, these are unrelated (mostly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysassafrass/pseuds/ladysassafrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after, John sits.<br/>He does not eat.<br/>He does not drink.</p><p>Outside the London bustle swells and ebbs. His ears hear, but do not listen.<br/>Before him rests the empty chair.</p><p>His mind is white.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> Story 5 out of 5 of the "Where Thou Art" work; however, I couldn't bring myself to cut John's story short.  
>  **TRIGGERS** : click below - "more notes" at the end of the work - if you are at risk for any triggers.

 

 

* * *

 

   

In the days after, John sits.  
He does not eat.  
He does not drink.  
Outside, the London bustle swells and ebbs. His ears hear, but do not listen.

Before him rests the empty chair.

His mind is white.

 

* * *

    

The calls come ceaselessly. Reporters, 'friends', family. Even Lestrade and Molly a few times.  
The script never deviates. "How are you doing? (I'm fine.) He was a dear friend to you, wasn't he? (Yes.) When's the funeral? (Talk to Mycroft.) I'm so sorry (…)"

_I'm so sorry._

Like he is a priest dishing out absolutions.

_I'm so sorry._

 

He lets the calls go ringing after a while.

 

* * *

  

The TV blares in the flat next door. _"Just days after...disgraced detective, Sherlock Holmes...suicide..."_

Stacks of old newspapers cover the coffee table. In the margins scrawl comments like 'Could be interesting,' or 'Dog swallowed the ring. Dull.' Some had stars. Stars meant 'contact immediately,' or rather contacted already by the time John would get downstairs...

 

John keeps the front pages face-down. 'Hero of the Reichenbach,' they say. 'Nation's favourite detective.'

The papers date back barely a month.  
It boils his blood.

 

* * *

 

 

"No."

"I didn't ask if I could. I'm telling you I'm coming down there."

"No."

"Just for a night or two. Please? I'll cook for you."

"I don't want you to cook for me."

"Jesus, will you just let me be a sister?"

"I'm alright."

"No, you're not, John."

"...I don't know what to tell you then."

"Tell how you're really doing! Tell me what you don't want to say! Please…just please, don't shutdown like Mum did-"

"Goodbye, Harry."

"Wait, don't you dare-!"  _Click._

 

* * *

  

On the kitchen table rests flasks of every shape and size. There are bottles, petri-dishes, a mortar and pestle, tweezers, pH papers, and an expensive pen (likely lifted from Mycroft). There is crumpled paper strewn everywhere, scribbled all over in illegible ink. There is a microscope whose weak light shines upon a slide of some strange substance.

There is a jack knife.

There is a half-eaten box of Chinese take-away.

There's an apple sealed in bag, carved in its flesh, the letters: 'I O U'.

 

John can only bring himself to turn off the micro-scope light. 

  

* * *

 

"John?"

He jumps in his chair. What time is it? His watch says morning. It feels like the afternoon. Doesn't matter though, he supposes. Doesn't matter.

"John, are you there?"

Mrs. Hudson would have heard him if he'd left. He stirs his tea with a silver spoon, watching the brown waves go round and round.

"I made some biscuits," comes a warble through the door. A buttery smell slips into the flat. His stomach lurches, but he keeps himself still. A dip forms in the swirling tea, ringed by ridges of cream.

"John," the door whispers, "Are you alright?"

 _Alright._  In Afghanistan, alright is when the squad falls prey to ambush and you can still breathe and count most of your appendages. In his childhood, alright is when you fell and cut your knee but you didn't feel the pain.  
You didn't feel anything at all.

"'M fine." He barely hears his own voice.

The tea is cold. He drinks it anyway.

At some point, the smell of buttermilk biscuits disappears.   
At some other point, darkness falls.

It doesn't matter at all.

  

* * *

 

  

At night, he counts the divets and cracks in the ceiling. He counts the scuffs and scratches on the dresser. He counts how many times the tube goes by in an hour.

He does anything and everything, but let his eyes close.

 

* * *

 

  

"…circumstances with the state, given that he had a warrant out for his arrest at the time." Mycroft is ambling about the flat, surveying its content with an upturned nose. John sits on the couch, unmoving, his back like a meter stick. "That, and it is unlikely that he gave any thought to the state of his possessions after he died; to him, all that mattered was their usefulness- Are you listening?"

"Wha'? Yeah, sorry, yeah..."

There is a small singled hole nestled in the rug by the desk, caused by an experiment with sulfosacylic acid or something. They were going to replace the carpet, but never did.  
 _They._

"He cared for you, you know." Mycroft bears a strange expression. When he saw Mycroft at the Diogenes Club, the elder Holmes had a similar expression.   
 _I'm sorry. Would you tell him that?_

_I'm so sorry._

John jerks his head away. "What's it matter?"

Mycroft studies his umbrella. "Some, when grieving," he drones like a schoolteacher, "find consolation in memories of an individual. And man, in all his vanity, takes comfort in feeling important. So know this, John: you were important to him. Whether that offers you any solace, I don't know, but I hope it does."

John closes his eyes. The air feels cold and cloyed in his lungs.

"...Well. The family lawyers will be in touch when the final details are-"

"Two names in his address book."

Mycroft pauses, only to have his body abruptly stiffen. "John-"

"You gave that, that _snake_  the information he needed and now-"

"You don't really blame this on me, do you?" Mycroft doesn't meet John's gaze. His voice is unusually soft.

"Your own _brother_ , Mycroft."

For several minutes, the two men do not speak. For several ages, the men do not make eye contact. The silence is strangling.

"…I-"

" _Fuck. Off._ "

Mycroft squeezes his lips thin. His gaze drops down. But after a minute, he nods in resignation. "If you need me…ah, well." _We both know better than that._ "You may continue to reach out to me. I'll be in touch regardless, especially if you are staying…here." His voice drips with disdain, like the blood that would gush forth if John were to kick him in the teeth. "Good day to you."

The door shuts. Outside a Jaguar purrs awake and rumbles away. Downstairs, an opera recording warbles in Mrs. Hudson's flat. John hears snippets of arias, and in the lulls between, a sniveling moan.

He drops his head and presses his palms against his eyes. They come away wet.

  

* * *

 

 

John finally goes to the grocery store. His eyes fix themselves towards the ground, in case anyone knows his face. He buys milk, eggs, detergent, and aspirin.   
 _Would you buy milk?_

_Hm? Yeah. (No)._

 

When he opens the fridge in the flat, there is a bag of fingers in the vegetable drawer.

A loud beep. He has stood there with the door open long enough that the fridge has warmed 2 degrees.

His gut lurches as the fingers are disposed of. The rotting smell hits him later.

 

* * *

 

 

  _-he runs and the streets are dark and wet-_

_Come along, John!_

_-his heart pounds so loud, and the blood rushes to his ears; which is more deafening?-_

_This way! Come on!_

_-ducking, dipping, reversing and backtracking; cold steel on his wrist, cold breath in the wind-_

_Can't you see?_

_\- hurtling after a figure in dark, he is dragged along-_

_I'd be lost without my blogger._

"Ngh!" yelps John, but he clamps his mouth shut. He is lying in bed, not running or leaping or chasing. John is alright, everything is alright…

 

_I'd be lost without my blogger._

_I'd be lost._

John shoves his fist against his teeth. It barely stifles his moan.

 _I'm lost._  

 

* * *

 

 

The service is short and curt. Small crowd, a closed coffin.

He approaches it with his chest in a bubble. His eyes open, close, open again. When will the dream end? When will he see his bedroom ceiling and the sunlight sifting through the oily windows? It is a dream, it's too strange and unusual to be real.  
Others reach out to touch the black woodgrain lid. John does not.

 _"John."_ He sits in a wooden pew, beside a sniveling Mrs Hudson who looks at him in confusion. The congregation has been called to pray; John does not join. 

Outside the chapel walls, a freight train wails. A body on the train tracks, remarkably free of blood. A few days, interviews, and a breaking-and-entering later, it was revealed to be a fiancée's brother. Had it not been for a switch, the body would have gotten God knows how far away, and so would've the brother.

That's all it took: a shift, a movement measurable in millimeters.

A step.

As small as a whisper.

_"John."_

_"He wouldn't give a damn,_ " he hisses back. But the look in her eyes pangs him with regret.

_"Support us, O Lord,_   
_all the day long of this troublous life,_   
_until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,_   
_the busy world is hushed,_   
_the fever of life is over_   
_and our work is done..."_

Mycroft does not deliver a eulogy. "I think we all know him well enough that it all can go unsaid," he explains later.  
John didn't ask.

 

* * *

 

            _-he is running and the streets are dark and wet-_

_Come along, John!_

_-again, hurtling after a figure in dark, getting dragged along-_

_I don't have any friends._

_-but the figure pushes ahead, the space between them grows and the cold steel disappears and no, John is losing him, he's getting away, getting away -_

_I don't understand. Why would it make you upset?_

_-and it isn't night anymore, everything is suddenly so bright and grey, he can't see, but he keeps running, his lungs are burning cold-_

_Can't you see, John?_

_\- see him lying on the pavem--_

"No!" He snaps bolt upright in his bed, gasping for air. His hands grip fistfuls of sheets. His nightshirt clings to his clammy chest.

It takes a while for him to release the sheets. It takes even longer to stop his body shaking.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, John wakes to his alarm clock. He brushes his teeth without fear of any toxic substance in the sink.

He hobbles downstairs and plops in his armchair, pretending the empty one across from him is fine, just fine. He sits in the armchair so as not to disturb the kitchen table, its mess precisely as he'd left it.

Just in case.

But no guns fire. No head awaits him in the fridge. There is no frantic energy or flurry of activity to disturb anyone or anything. The flat is silent and still, like a temple.  
Or a morgue.

 

* * *

 

 

It is a P226 Rail, or L106A1 as designated by army. Short recoil, decocking lever to prevent misfires, no manual safety. It never once jammed on him, never betrayed him. Informally classified as a damn good gun.

John sits on the edge of the bed. Outside the city crawls along, not fully awake, but not asleep. The window creaks intermittently. Downstairs, a faucet drips a lazy beat.

The barrel (9mm) seems narrower than normal, its inner walls blacker than the night-cloaked room. Deadly at its full range of 50-so meters, there is no doubt what it can do in 10 centimeters. It is an instrument of precision in his hands, like a knife or a scalpel.

He struggles to get the angle right. The iron and sulfur taste sour on his tongue. The hammer clicks into place loudly, but he does not flinch. His fingers, by habit, keep off the trigger.

 

Hours, years pass as he lies there in the cheap sheets, the glow of headlamps creeping across the wall,  
   his jaw ajar,  
     his lips hovering above the cold barrel,  
       his mind a white, numbing static.

 

A voice floats about the static. _No_ ,

                                                    _no,_

                                                      _no._

It is drowned out by the stillness, numbing and hypnotic.

 

 

 

_Bzzz._

 

John lifts his neck. A small light glows from his phone atop the dresser.  
His heart does a butterfly kick.

He leaps to his feet, tossing the gun aside on the bed, and seizes the phone-

                              [1 New Message]

                               [Mike Stamford]

 

 

The silence of the empty room roars in his ears. He sinks to the ground, deflating like a burst balloon. 

_Stupid._   
_Stupid, stupid, stupid John._

 

He takes the gun and shoves it in a box under his bed. His body slumps back on the mattress, the phone still in his limp hand.

  

* * *

 

  

"Eighteen months since your last appointment, John."

The room is unnecessarily big. Must cost a fortune to heat and cool. _Pitter-patter-pitter-patter_ drums the rain on the window.

"And one month since-"

"Yeah." His fingers tap on the sticky pleather, matching the pounding of the rain, then the tick of the clock. 

"What happened?"

If the rain becomes a hurricane, if a lightening strike were to rip open the ceiling and let the room flood, then John would wash away. All of London would wash away, swirl into the Thames and be carried out to sea. Then it would not matter. Nothing would matter.

"You need to get it out, John."

His words rolls off a strange and wooden tongue.

  

* * *

 

 

"Harry, I told you I didn't want-"

"Shut up, it's just one night. If you're fine, then you're fine." Her bag lands on the floor with a loud thump. "God, we haven't seen each other in three years."

"Mhm."

"Sorry that it has to be these circumstances-"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine."

She rolls her eyes. Yeah right. Her eyes sweep the apartment until they catch the kitchen. "Holy hell, Johnny! It's a disaster in here! What are these bottles? Here, I'll-"

"Don't," he snarl, his hands balling into fists. "Touch a thing."

Harry throws up her hands theatrically. "Whoa, there. Sorry I asked, how's my head taste?" Then she looks to John and her face softens. "Ah, fuck, I - I'm sorry, I'm not used to this; the whole tender-loving-care thing."

He says nothing.

"And I'm sorry we haven't been as close lately, ever since the whole, well, mess I made-"

"Really, not the best time, Harry."

"Alright, alright, sorry, the point is, you're grieving. You are. And the Watson Way to handle grief is to bottle it up and shut yourself down. But please, please don't do that. I…I don't want you be like Mum after Dad died."

A jolt seizes his body. "Sher- He and I are not- were never-"

"Shut up, I know the look in your eye. He mattered to you, John, as much as Dad did to Mum-"

"Well, you don't know shit about me. If you think we're _gay_ for each other, you don't know _shit_. Or are you just too _drunk_ to notice?"

 

  

The door slams with such force that it shakes the walls. Her feet pound down the stairs and out onto the street. He has yet to move from his spot. 

 

 

* * *

 

  

John sits in the faded armchair, his feet bare, his shirt undone.  
He does not eat.   
He drinks cold tea.   
Outside, an ambulance howls its ways through London.

   
Suddenly:  _thump thump thump._

The echo of footfalls, of someone climbing the stairwell-  
A muffled  _slam._

A door outside. Another flat, belonging to another tenant. 

  
John has been holding his breath.

When he releases it, his insides feel like the bullet-riddled wall.

 

 

* * *

 

  

"How does it feel, John?"

"Mm?"

"What are you feeling with him gone?"

Her heels are new; shiny leather, bought sometime in the last few days.

"Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Do any of these match with what you are feeling? Or is there something else?"

Flecks of dirt; she had to walk in the damp this morning. Her hair: short, frizzy, from the rain perhaps? _Where does she live? What's her family like? Does she have siblings? Is that cat hair on her sweater?_

"Is he gone to you yet?"

 _No, no, no._ John only sees hair, shoes, sweater, eyes warm but professionally distant, but he can make nothing of it.  _What am I doing? What do I think I'm doing?_

"John, you are hiding."

He tenses.  _Can she read my mind? No of course not, Christ. Don't be ridiculous, John._

_You're an idiot, John._

_No, no, no, don't be like that, practically everyone is._

_John._

_John._

"John."

Dr. Thompson is watching him. Her lips curl into a patient smile. 

He realizes he is panting. Heat rushes to his cheeks.

"It's okay to think of him, you know."

The appointment drags out for ever.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Oh please, John, it won't take long at all. Just a quick popover."

"No, I'm sorry, Mrs. Hudson-"

"You wouldn't refuse an old woman, would you, John?"

His mouth goes dry as a bone. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry, but-"

"Please, I...I can't make the trip alone."

The guilt trip ends. There lies the cold, naked truth.

_I can't do this alone._

_I can't._

"Alright," falls out of his mouth. She kisses his cheek exuberantly. He feels like he is made of metal.

 

_I can't do this alone._   
_ I can't._

_But I don't know if I can do this at all._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Briiing. "Hello?"

"Mike? It's John."

"John? Oh, my goodness, good to hear your voice. Erm, how's it all going-?"

"Fine," John manages to say in a normal voice. "Look, sorry about your texts and-"

"Oh, no worries, no worries. So, erm, what is up?"

A snort escapes John. It's good, it loosens his gut. "Do you want to go get a beer?" 

 

* * *

  

The first bottle goes down without a word.

"So...you wanna talk about it?"

Stamford's cheeks already flush red. Back at medical school, he would be the designated walker, or the first one to puke. John curses himself for forgetting.

"John?"

"Wha-? Sorry, no, no." He shakes his head insistently.  _Please let it drop, please, please let it drop._

Mike shrugs and takes a swig. Thank God for Mike Stamford.

  
The beer tastes like piss, but the buzz feels nice. "How's the, erm, professor-thing going, I guess?"

"Not bad." Mike orders another beer. John winces. "I'm a while away from any chance of tenure, and still can't stand the lil' shits sometimes." That provokes a chuckle out of them both."But it's not the same, to no longer come down to the lab and see Sher - oh, God, I'm sorry."  _I'm so sorry._

"It's fine," sputters John after taking a bad swig of his beer. "Please, really, it's fine." And Mike finally stops looking concerned.

Two more beers go down. A football match blares on the bar telly. Someone makes a goal. It seems to be a big deal. John breathes in a stew of tobacco, cheap leather, and sweat.

"Mrs. Hudson's making me go tomorrow."

"Go..."

"To his-"

"Ah." Mike nods. His eyes open and close lazily. "Best of luck, mate." He lifts the nozzle of his bottle, and they clinks their bottles together.  
Taking a long guzzle of piss beer, John ignores the hole burning in his stomach.

"Oy, look." Mike swings an unsteady hand. At the other side of the pub, a man leans against the bar, talking with a blonde woman. Or, to: she keeps her eyes on her drink, her mouth firmly shut. With every inch of room the man steals from her, the tighter she pulls his arms in.

"Whatcha doin', mate?"

The man does not notice John initially, but when he does, the toothy smile becomes predatory. "Nothin' that's any of your business, mate."

"She's not interested."

"Wha'?"

"She's not interested." John's voice is like iron. "Back off."

"Wha'? I can't hear you, come a lil closer-"

But John dodges the man's hook; some habits never die. But he delivers an uppercut to the man's stomach and nearly topples over himself, revealing just how John has drunk tonight.

"Get the fuck off me, you bastard-" The man smells like rot and sour milk. John is shoved backwards. The pub walls blur. His stomach does a backflip.

He steadies himself just enough to watch the purple-faced drunk barreling towards him. It's enough warning. He lets out his air before his back hits the floorboards with a solid whoomp.  
After a moment, a roar echoes just above John's drunken haze: "That's bloody enough!" Some force pulls the man off of him, releasing his lungs but also allowing small patches of pain to start throbbing all over John. The man had been pummeling him. 

"John, y'alright?"

He still has his appendages and his lungs still work. It's manageable pain. He's had worse. 

"Le's get outta 'ere, John."

A hand grips his shoulder and tugs him to his feet. Everything suddenly gets cold and dark and quiet. John is panting, his lungs burning cold, and his heart is pumping hard in his chest, running the blood all over...

_Blood running all over the pavement._

The last time he did something like this was… 

_Was..._

The sidewalk rushes towards him. Everything comes up and out. His body has no mercy.

"Ah, God, John." An awkward tipsy voice connects to an awkward hand that pats John on his back as he empties his stomach. "Alright, just let it out John," mumbles the gasping Stamford. "The cab'll be nice an' warm, yea?"

But John's trembling has nothing to do with the cold.

  

 

* * *

 

 

_\- the streets are black and the same shadowy man sprints ahead of him -_

_Come along, come on!_

_\- he's getting away, as he always does, but John hurtles after him anyway because he has to, he has to because maybe -_

_Heroes don't exist, John._

_\- just maybe -_

_And if they did, I wouldn't be one of them._

_\- this time will be different -_

_I don't have any friends._

_-and the darkness dissolves into the blinding gray and the dark figure is no longer in sight but John knew exactly where he is, but John doesn't look there, no John must keep running-_

_John._

_\- no, wait, just wait a moment more -_

_Do this for me?_

_\- please, I'm almost there, I'm almost there -_

_Please?_

_\- I swear, this time will be different -_

_That's people do, don't they?_

_\- no, this time I can do it -_

_Leave a note?_

_\- this time I will save you -_

_Goodbye, John._

_\- no no no NO NO NO -_

"Sherlock!"

The scream echoes around the flat. It's so loud that it smacks right back against John's skull. Somewhere, a dog starts barking. Somewhere, pat-pat goes the feet of a couple of baffled neighbors.

He doesn't care, he realizes as he buckles over his knees and his eyes begin to sting and blur.

 

None of it matters at all.

 

 

* * *

  

 

There are 238 divets in the bedroom ceiling. On the dresser, 10 scuff-marks and 132 scratches.  
The light-dots in his vision number anywhere from 10 to 18, depending on the day.  
And the tube passes by four times approximately in the space of an hour.

 

At the end of the hallway a door, rarely opened as its owner rarely put it to use in his life.

It doesn't matter. The door will never be opened again.

 

 

* * *

 

  

John takes 61 breaths on the way to the cemetery. 

His heart thuds 67 times a minute.

A total six words are exchanged.

"I'm glad you came, John."

"Mm."

Five words and a noise.

 

 

* * *

 

  

Mrs. Hudson takes short, mincing steps. John grits his teeth. She grips his arm like he were a life boat. Too bad he's actually the man marooned on a broken ship, its sails stripped, rudders locked, course fixed towards the edge of the world.

John will die one day. So will Mrs. Hudson. And Lestrade. And Mike. And Molly. All the babies born today, they'll die someday. All the babies born tomorrow, they're doomed too.

 

It doesn't matter.  
Not in the end, anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It stands apart from the other dilapidated headstones: brand new, the mound still painfully fresh. It stands beneath the shade of a knobbed tree. 

Black granite, cold and austere. Even under cloudcover, it shines.

Carved in gold letters:

 

 

 

 

**SHERLOCK HOLMES**

  
**  
"Death - The Final Problem"**

 

* * *

 

  

 

At least in Afghanistan, the IEDs destroy everything. Men are no longer men, but spatters of charcoal.

Charcoal is easier to bury.

Charcoal is easier to burn.

 

  

* * *

 

 

 

After all is said and done, he marches out. Away from the knobbed tree, the bare and sharp-edged granite.  
Presumably, Mrs. Hudson already took a cab. The walk back isn't too far. 

Something hisses in the back of his head that he is being watched.

_Damn ghosts._

  
His heart spasms into a nasty shape.

   

 

* * *

 

 

 

There's nothing unusual in that, she replied. That's the way he made everyone feel.  
But the anger rippling inside his gut is different from hers. His anger comes from questions left unanswered, from the biggest question of all.  _Why._

_Why, Sherlock?_

_Why did this happen?_

 

  

* * *

 

  

 

The public turned against him. Lestrade was forced to turn against him. Even his own damn brother betrayed him. And Moriarty pulled every string, conducted each scene and its brutal conclusion with cold brilliance.

Nevertheless, as John's feet find themselves to the door of 221 Baker Street, it was ultimately Sherlock who did this.

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, his genius as immense as his ego.

Sherlock Holmes, publicly defrauded and humiliated, who threw himself off of St. Bart's.  
  
Sherlock.

Sherlock, who made John watch.

 

And now standing in 221B, everything, everything pulses of him. It's in the walls with the bullet holes and the book stacks-

                      _-Sherlock pulling on his blue scarf, dashing out the door-_

In the microscopes and the mysterious glass bottles and mess of paper-

                      _-Sherlock wrapped in his long black coat, watching crap telly-_

It is like a stench, a force, a wall of air pressing at him from every side-

                      _-Sherlock's eyes when he saw John by the pool, John the last pip-_

 _-Sherlock's eyes as he looked upon the bare, bold body of Irene-_  
  
And John loses himself in the sea of flashes. His brain will not turn off; the memories will not stop-

                     - _Sherlock manic, on the verge of tears that night in Dartmoor-_

John's fists curl and uncurl. He hopes to God he can ride this out.

                      _-Sherlock playing his violin, his lids half-closed, almost as if he were asleep-_

He desperately hopes he can ride out this storm of pain.

                      _-Sherlock on the roof, his voice cracking-_

God no.

                      _-on the ground, his body cracking-_  

He is drowning, _Sherlock_  drowning under the weight of his mind _pressing down like a falling body_  and everything reels _falling, down, down, GET DOWN_  he is in Afghanistan again _BOOM BOOM kukakukakuka BOOM_  the sound of shells and guns but no it is silent and _empty_ and it is so cold it burned and _Sherlock_  he is burning  _I will burn the heart of you_ but no it's John who burned and all because of  _Sherlock why, Sherlock, why did you do it? How could you do it. Why did you burn me. Why are you burning me. I hate you, Sherlock Holmes, I wish I never met you and I hate you I hate you I **hate you** -_

 _Crash! Boom!_ John freezes.

The mirror above the fireplace is shattered, a spider-web of cracks reflecting a hundred crooked Johns. On the carpet rests the old skull, toppled on its side, a clear dent in its parietal bone. Next to it sprawls a book that he apparently hurled.

 

John stands where he is for a while. The wave of anger has consumed him, emptied him out and left him out to dry like a pitcher that had been full of rotten milk.

_Would you get milk?_

_Would you do that?_

_My best friend, Sherlock Holmes…_

_Would you just stop this?_

_-his eyes open and lifeless, the cheekbones painted red, the curls soaked in blood-_

_Stop this please._

 

The worst part is not that he asked for the clearly impossible, or that he was on the verge of begging for it.

It's that no one heard the plea. For no one is there to hear but John himself.

 

John is alone. 

John is utterly and devastatingly alone.

  

* * *

 

 

 

The next morning, John's legs carry him out of bed.  
His hands drag the toothbrush across his gums.  
His feet lead him down the stairs.  
His arms prop him up against the counter as he waits for his bread to finish toasting.

Suddenly, he hears it: on the other side of the wall, a radio playing. In scratchy whines, it plays a piece by a solo violin. Slow and far too familiar.

On the other side of the wall, a coffee machine chirps. Someone laughs, checks their email.

On the other side of the wall, no one hears the hitched sobs of the broken man next door.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_John-_

No.

John is empty. John contains nothing. John feels nothing.  
John never wants to burn again.

   

 

* * *

 

 

 

Getting out of bed is probably pointless.

 

By ten o'clock, John stands in the kitchen stirring cream into his coffee anyway.

Habit. It's all he has left to carry him along.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 If he does not leave 221B soon, something else will receive a thrown book.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Hardly anyone is in this part of Hyde Park: a few families, pairs of lovers exchanging sugary smiles, men and women with wrinkled faces and gray hair shuffling along the gravel paths.

 _He_ will never grow old. _He_ will never have someone swear to love him in sickness and in health. _He_ will never raise a family, watch his children trade toy trains for train tickets, watch them go far and off while he'd settle in the countryside, or if he preferred, the city-

_No, no, stop it._

The gyro stand nearby lures him on a whim. The savory smell brushes his nose as the vendor prepares the sizzling meat. John reaches into his pocket for his wallet-

Not there. Not in his pants' pockets, nor in his jacket, nor in his shirt. John whirls around; no sign of anyone booking it out of the park. The vendor twitches his nose irritatedly.  _Fuck. Just what I need._

"I'll pay for him." A female voice, soft, young. "And for myself, ta." The woman steps next to John and throws him a grin. Blonde curls peek beneath a bright orange woolly cap.

She hands the vendor a few pounds. The man mumbles a foreign but undoubtable curse under his breath.   
John flushes. "No, you- you don't have to-"

"It's no problem." Somehow, her bouncing curls and her pale profile look familiar. "I reckon I owe you one, anyway."

"What d'you mean?"

"You don't remember?" She receives the gyro from the smiling vendor, who promptly throws John a final scathing look. "You and your friend, you fought off a creep for me at the bar."

"Oh."

She shrugs. "Good thing we ran into each other again." Her lips curls into a lopsided smile. "I never thanked you."

"Please." John waves his hand. His chuckles sounds far too loud to be casual. "It, it was-"

"Were you alright after that?" 

"What, me? Yeah."

She arches a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. "That bloke knocked you down pretty good."

"Ah, well, don't say that aloud. There could be women nearby who hear."

She snickers at that. He almost joins her out of shock. That rolled off his tongue without a thought. He just _flirted_ by accident.  
Her gray-gloved hands sweep a curl out of her lashes. Her skin radiates despite the typical London grey. His chest twitches, but not in an uncomfortable way.

"...You'll probably want to go to the police station."

"Hm?"

"To file a report? About your wallet?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, right." He swallows, the skin on the back of his neck becoming hot. "I'll do that later. Nothing I need in there."

"Nothing you need." She repeats his words deliberately.

"Yeah, yeah it's-" _Christ, I look like a goddamn idiot_. "it's fine, my cards are at home, and erm...I'm not, erm," he mutters, looking down at his feet. "I'm not on very good terms with the police at the moment."

But she doesn't seem to hear him. Something has caught her gaze. About 20 meters away, a child is pointing an accusing finger directly at John's head.

"Do you know him?" The woman turns to John with an innocent, jesting smile. But John feels his gut start to squelch. 

"No, no, not at all." The child pulls at his father's sleeve. John begins to sweat.

"He seems to know you."

The man acknowledges his son wearily. His eyes wanders, but the boy is insistent, jabbing at John's figure as though his finger were a knife.  
 _The Boffin Detective wasn't the only one with his picture in the paper._

Ice is hurtling through John's veins.

"Yeah, no, sorry I- I have to go."

"Oh?"

The father's gaze fixes on John. 

"Yeah, I erm, I- I have an appointment, and then I'm going to the police right after."

The father's eyes narrow. Then suddenly they widen. 

The boy smiles wickedly, like a wolf who's cornered his prey.

"I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry..." The word keeps tumbling out as he walks away as quickly as he can; away from the bewildered woman, away from the wide-eyed father and the snappy vendor and Hyde Park and everyone in London.

He is almost relieved to be home at Baker Street.

 

* * *

  

Hopefully, Molly wouldn't call him. What happened at the morgue was…

_Christ._

  

* * *

 

 

London had one of its rare sunny days. Strolling through Hyde Park (having worked up his nerve), John spies a familiar orange hat at a park bench. The blonde woman is bent over a pad of paper, her eyes glued to the page, her hands wielding a pencil with careful strokes. A breeze sweeps a flyaway curl into her lashes. She doesn't so much as blink.

"You sketch?"

It takes her a double glance to recognize John. "I dabble," she replies. A smile creeps onto her face. 

"Can I see?"

"Sure, sit down, let me clear all this out of the way."

His cheeks can't help but spread as he plops on the bench beside her. There's hardly much space between their legs.  
On the sketchpad on her lap, a woman with retro curls and flawless skin stares up at the blue sky. She looks remarkably like her artist, but with a longer nose and steelier gaze.  
The blonde woman catches John's mesmerized gaze and flushes. "It's my mother, when she was younger."

"It's phenomenal," breathes John without missing a beat.

She just smiles, her cheeks a bit flushed. Whether it's the cold or it isn't, her skin glows even more. 

"I'm John, by the way."

"John," she repeats. "Now, John, I have two things to say, or one thing to ask, one to say. First, why are you and the police not on good terms?"

An invisible and seizes his heart. John clears his throat. "Erm."  
She is nice. She is nice and sweet and good and she has no business associating with someone like him, with a bullet in his back and a dead best friend on his shoulders. She should know. She should know now so she can reject him on her own because it isn't right to deceive her any longer.

"I used to..." He licks his lips nervously, then lets out a wistful sigh. "I used to consult with the police. I went to crime scenes and such, and blogged about it."

Walkers pass by, their chatter brushing his ears. Sunlight beats down on his back.

"Oh." Her voice is like baby's breath. It still feels like a gale. "I didn't know the police-"

"They don't. That's why we're not on good terms."

They go quiet for a moment. John holds his breath.

 

A laugh, like a bird's trill; the woman is laughing. Her brown eyes sparkle warmly towards John. A breeze picks up her stray curls and blows them back over her shoulder. He looks to her in astonishment, and the impulse to laugh with her rises in him. He's mad. They're both mad. 

"I'm sorry." She shakes her head. Her cheeks turn pink. "After what happened before, I thought-"

"The worst," he finished for her, in sudden realization. He chuckles. The sunlight no longer feels so oppressive. "And I don't blame you a bit. That was not one of my more shining moments."

"No." She smirks. "I'm afraid it wasn't." 

They laugh again. 

"So, did I answer well enough?"

"You mean, for the second part?"

John nods.

"Mary."

"Hm?"

"My name's Mary," she says with a wink, "so you can ask me out to coffee proper."

 

* * *

 

 "You've reached John Watson's phone. Sorry I can't pick up right now. Leave a message and I'll ring you back shortly. Thanks." 

_Beep._

"Hey John, it's Mike Stamford, I just got your message. Good to hear your voice again! I'm not sure if there's anything at St. Barts- well, maybe that's not the best place anyway, sorry. But I got some contacts at clinics in the area. Let's grab a cuppa some time soon, something non-alcoholic, if you don't mind, hehe. Thanks."

 

* * *

 

"Hoping to be a teacher," Mary tells him over tapas a week later. "Just finished my master's last year. What do you do, John? Besides bother the police."

After the initial jolt, he lets out a chuckle. "I'm a doctor."

"A doctor?"

"Mhm." He smiles despite himself. "Doctor John Watson." Suddenly, his back goes rigid Bachelor John Watson, partner John Watson, colleague of the Reichenbach hero. The bathroom is not too far. He takes an impolitely long sip of wine. 

"Well," she replies, "to the kindergartners, I'd be Miss Mary Morstan."

He goggles at her. No flash of pity or recognition in his eyes. Watson, the name, means nothing to her. The knots in his stomach go slack.

"Ah. Then may I ask" - he leans towards her with a deliberate smirk - "how a Miss Mary Morstan winds up at dingy pubs on a back street of London?"

He immediately regrets asking. "Erm." Her eyes go gray and she begins to pick at her hands. "It's a bit complicated."

"Forget I asked," says John quickly. The waiter comes and John a questioning brow. John simply scowls and signals for more wine.

"I was coming from an event," she says all of a sudden, idly toying with her fork. "It warranted a drink afterward."

"Was it a funeral?" he asks. He hides his wince behind a sip of wine.

"Worse. A wedding."

He shouldn't laugh.  _God_ , it's terrible that he's laughing. "I didn't know weddings could go that bad," he mumbles trying to suffocate himself behind his napkin.

But thank the Lord, she smiles slightly. "Neither did I. Like I said, it's a bit complicated." She takes a long sip of wine. "I'd rather not talk about it."

 "Alright." The candlelight casts a halo around Mary's hair. "Alright."

  

* * *

 

 

_Beep._

"Hi, Doctor Watson, our clinic has received your CV and would like to sit down in an interview with you at your earliest convenience. Please ring us at 044…"

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

"Well."

The date had been spontaneous: Mary called John by whim, and two cocoas, a movie, and a hour-long walk later, they now stand outside her front door, grinning like idiots.

Mary's arms have wrapped themselves around him, like he were a giant teddy bear. Cold bites his ears. Her orange hat itches his nose. Automatically, his arms reach around her white peacoat. Her body feels so delicate against his.

Above, it is a clear night. John can make out a dozen or so white glimmers in the black expanse. 

_Beautiful, isn't it?_

"John?" Mary pulls partially away after his body stiffens in his arms. Her eyes quiver with concern, searching his face for answers. She won't find them. Mary is nice and good and soft and too good for John. She could never guess at the terrible secrets of the broken man in her arms.

"John- oof!"

The kiss is terrible: teeth clack against teeth, lip crashes against lip. They have to pull away. Mary breaks down laughing and John is utterly mortified.

"Oh God," he stammers, a fire stoking each cheek. "I'm sorry, Mary, please don't-" 

But then Mary takes control and it's better.

 

_Beautiful?_

_(it's not, is it?)_

_Shut up._

It's better.

Better than how it all was before.

  

* * *

 

 

"You've reached John Watson's phone. Sorry I can't pick up right now. Leave a message and I'll ring you back shortly. Thanks." 

_Beep._

"Hello, Mr. Watson, this is Greta Larson at the Daily Mail wondering if you want to make any comment on the six-month anniversary of-"

_Click. Delete._

 

_Beep._

"Hello, John. I'd drop by your flat but I'm afraid I'd meet the same fate as that mirror of yours. No loss; the book was of greater value. Anyway, the family lawyers have my brother's estate in order now. While he never thought of his possessions as anything important beyond his own use, there are some legacies that he specifically instructed be left to you-"

_Click. Delete._

 

_Beep._

"Hey, John, can _not_ wait for tonight. I may be running a little late from a meeting, but I promise to hurry. 221B Baker, yeah? See you in a bit. Really, cannot _wait_."

 

* * *

 

The flat looks better than he'd ever seen it. No grime dirt, all the books put away, the cushions straightened, and the kitchen-

The kitchen.

Carboys and test tubes and flasks and brown bottles, collecting dust like artifacts in a museum. Papers covered in grids and tables, marked with furious scribbles, strewn every which way. A microscope, a mortar and pestle, and a rotting apple in a bag. 'I O U'.

His fingers were the last to touch it. It holds his last breath in a way that a headstone never can.

John stares for a long, long time.

But in the end, the bottles are bottles. The microscope is a microscope. The apple's flesh has rotted black.

John drags out a dustbin and a cardboard box.

 

* * *

  

Only, after John gathers up all the non-disposables of Sherlock's into the box and tramps up the stairs and before him stands the closed door at the end of the hallway, he freezes. A layer of dust coats the doorknob, turning his hand black as he seizes it and with a trembling arm twists…

and with his eyes closed, shoves the box into the room and all but slams the door. He does his very best not to slump against the wall and gasp in air like a suffocating fish.

He almost succeeds.

  

* * *

 

 

 Just as John lights the last candle, Mary walks into 221B. "Wow," she breathes.

He's quite proud of the table spread himself. Mrs. Hudson's china and cloth napkins show well beneath the clean lamps, and the bread is warm and fresh and the entree, well…

"Spaghetti?" 

"I'm a doctor, not a cook," he retorts with a teasing grin.

Mary has done herself up tonight. Her bright brown eyes take a casual glance at her surroundings. She takes one step, and another step towards him. Her black dress hugs her frame perfectly, running over a slightly plump stomach and a delightfully plump chest (stop it, John, you perverted prick). She lets her slender fingers drag over the walls, the door-frames in the most careless movement. Her teeth catch her rosy lower lip, biting gently and slowly letting it go. It's when her eyes lock on John that he realizes the deliberateness behind her every motion.

_Oh. I am being seduced._

_This is what being seduced is like._

_This is what being wanted is like._

_He cared for you, you know._

Suddenly, Mary's face is hovering centimeters from his. He sees each individual lash, every quiver of her pupils. Warmth radiates from his chest to hers. Her hair smells of apples. Her breath is like a dare.

 

_Beautiful, isn't it?_

  
John doesn't remember what beautiful is. All he knows is Mary's body pressed against him, her lips millimeters away. He is on the edge of a diving board, seconds away from when he will or he will not take a leap.

"Well," she murmurs. 

"Well," he replies.

_Beautiful._

The flasks are flasks. The room is a room. His best friend is dead, gone, and buried. It's time that John buried him, too.  
His eyes close and John blindly takes the plunge.

  

* * *

 

 

"John! John!" cries Mary as John leaps bolt upright in bed with a scream. She reaches for his shoulders. He tries to pull away, but her hands latch on and pull until Mary has wrapped her arms around his shivering torso. He doesn't push her away - he's forgotten how to control his body.

"John..." comes a murmur from his shoulder. "Who lives in the room at the end of the hall?"

She feels him tense.

"John-"

"No one," he croaks.

"Did someone used to live there?"

He pulls in his legs and lets his head drop between his knees.

"Oh, John." Her fingers run over his arms. Her lips press all along the tops of his shoulders. "Let me in, please. Let me in." 

Her bare breasts are warm and soft against his back and John is so very cold but her warmth only brushes his skin and cannot reach into the bone where deep winter has festered ever since…

Without warning, he whirls around and buries his face in her shoulder, clutching at her sides with open yet firm hands as he works his way towards her breasts. Mary in turn presses her fingertips into his hair, rubbing in small, soothing circles. She makes no sound when he closes his lips around her nipple and begins to suck with the most obscene noises. "John" is all she says as his teeth clamp not so gently and pull.

 

* * *

  

He wakes in the morning to the smell of coffee. Mary is already downstairs, making toast and wearing his robe. 

She hands him a mug with the smallest smile. "Thanks," he mutters. He then slumps into a chair. "I'm...I'm sorry about what happened."

Her back is to him. He sees her shoulders roll slowly back. "You mean, about what we did-?"

"Oh, no no no, not that." _God no, it was..._  "About what...what I did. What you saw."

_I'm sorry I broke in front of you. I'm sorry I am broken. I'm sorry you are sleeping with a broken man. I'm sorry you are good and nice and ordinary and I will never be that. I'm sorry that I like the way you make me feel better than before._

_I'm sorry._

_I'm so so sorry._

Without a word, a tiny fragile hand slips into his and squeezes. "John."

John presses his lips together and shuts his eyes. Mary may not mind if he cries, but he will.

"Four years ago," Mary says suddenly, "my mum passed away. Ovarian cancer; it came out of the blue. She didn't even live long enough to get chemotherapy. I could not even cry when they delivered the news, I was so shocked." Her wobbly brown eyes study the grain of the table. "A year later, my dad fell in love again and a few years after that, he had a second wedding. That was the night you and I met, John." Her voice drops off. 

 

John takes his other hand and encloses it around hers, rubbing his thumbs in gentle circles against her skin. The mug no longer warms his hands. The toast is most likely cold as well. 

Cold is good. Cold stops the bleeding. Cold soothes the burn.

Mary is good. Mary is warm and soft. Mary has said next time.

"Mary…"

"I love you, John."

Everything stops. But it doesn't: the refrigerator rumbles in the corner. Water rushes in muffled tones behind the walls. Outside the morning traffic croons its daily song, as the city shuffles awake with drowsy eyes. 

The silence in John is all too deafening, and with every passing second, he sees Mary's face tremble more and more.

"I..." He knows what he should say, what he must say. But the words hitch in his throat. They won't come. They just won't come.  
His head drops in defeat. "I can't," he mumbles. "Not...right now. I'm sorry."

_I'm so sorry._

John's life is one long apology.

"Then...someday?" Her lips quiver. She can't meet John's gaze.

 _Someday._ Someday, maybe John won't be broken. Someday, maybe he'll sleep at night without thinking of blood and pavement and marble skin. Someday, maybe Mary's warmth will reach his bones and John won't be so cold anymore.

"Yeah," he sighs with a pathetic smile. "Someday."  _I think. I hope._

Her hand squeezes his.

Somewhere upstairs, a ghost is cackling. 

 

* * *

 

"Good of you to finally answer my call."

John simply scowls. "Good thing your gorilla of a guard gave me a whole range of choice."

Mycroft simpers. He leans back luxuriously behind the oak desk (expensive, as compared to the rest of the government office). Above Mycroft's head, Her Royal Majesty in all of her finery stares at John coldly.

"The lawyers got impatient," drones Mycroft, tapping his fingers. "So this shall be conducted just between the two of us. Much better, don't you agree?"

John smiles. He cannot disagree more.

"Good. They have kindly circled the lines where you shall sign."

"Shouldn't I know what I'm signing for first?"

Mycroft narrows his eyes at John. "Then why don't you read for yourself?" The papers rasp across the desktop as Mycroft casually pushes the packet towards John.

John skims the first few lines, then stops when it comes the header reading  _Legacies._

 

> _"To my brother Mycroft Sigerson Holmes, I leave the heirloom chess set, passed down from our father's family, located in a box somewhere in Mrs. Hudson's basement. He is expressly forbidden from taking or touching anything else."_

John lets out a snort, ignoring Mycroft's dirty look.

 

> _"To Molly Hooper, I leave my laptop, located in my laboratory at St. Bartholomew's Hospital- "_

_Your_ lab.

 

> _"-fully intact and untouched from its last usage."_

Another clause directed at Mycroft. The elder Holmes now stands by a drink cart, sipping a glass of Scotch. He does not offer one to John.

 

> _"To Mrs. Hudson, I leave the following express sum to cover the purchase of 221B Baker Street-"_

"What?!" John does not muffle his yelp.

"Thought you might be interested by that line," says Mycroft dryly, staring out the window, Scotch in hand. "That, and the line that follows."

 

> _"To Doctor John Watson, I leave all my remaining possessions, including the deed to the as-of-now purchased flat at 221B Baker Street, and the desire that he keeps my brother's slimy paws off of that which does not belong to him."_

For a while, silence grips the room. Mycroft watches John intently, his eyes cold over the rim of his scotch glass.

His eyebrows rise sharply when John lets out a laugh. "What's so funny, Doctor?" the elder Holmes almost snarls.

"Ah," breathes John. "Just...your brother. Being himself." John smiles triumphantly.

Mycroft in turn simply drums his finger on his glass. "Will you sign?"

"Like I have a choice. You forced me here after all-"

"Even though you do not plan to live at Baker Street much longer."

John stiffens. It's Mycroft's turn to be triumphant. "How do you-"

"John." That look. That look that oozes the odious reminder that _I know everything._ "So?"

"I'll still sign."

Mycroft narrows his eyes at John, asking silently for an explanation.

"Mrs. Hudson deserves the money. Molly deserves the laptop. And you of course, need to retrieve your precious chess set."

Mycroft twitches his lip in irritation. "And my pen."

"Sorry?"

"My brother lifted an antique pen off me last I saw him."

John shrugs, fixing his eyes to the lines where he scrawls his signature. "Dunno where it is."

"Keep an eye out."

"Of course."

Mycroft rolls his eyes. It's his last look at the elder Holmes, John realizes, as he strides out of the room.  
His heart rests on stilts.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you still sure about th-"

"I am, Mrs. Hudson," grunts John, hoisting the last box of books downstairs to 221C.

He has far too many books (well, he by virtue of him). Six boxes of books in total, though what had John really been expecting? If John ever has to bet on one man to have read the entire collection,  _he_  would be the easy pick.

Some just don't seem very Sherlock, though. The Holy Bible, for instance; why? Is it a family heirloom? No, God, a Holmes being sentimental, what is John thinking? And like hell, he'd ever read it as a holy text; the only thing Sherlock found close to heavenly was himself. Some novels are there; perfectly sound titles, like  _Pride and Prejudice_ , but John could never see him ever doing something close to light reading.

John even found in the jumble a book of poetry -  _Rilke's Book of Hours._ Sherlock, with  _poetry?_

"Well, I only mean that the flat is all but yours now, since the will paid down nearly 30 years worth of rent: more than its fair price, I'm not afraid to admit. And I feel awful just taking money like that if you're not going to be here-"

"I told you, it's fine." His mustache tickles his lip as he smiles at the old landlady. "It was left for you, not me."

"Well yes, but-"

"Mrs. Hudson. It's fine."

She opens her mouth to argue more, but then turns to go up the stairs. Under her breath, he hears her muttering. "Just as stubborn as he is- was."

John only sighs, slipping the book of poetry into his jacket pocket and follows after.

"I don't think I'll rent out that room though," she remarks, largely to herself. "Might put off customers, you know, and it just…"

The unspoken words ring out anyway:  _I don't want to._

She stops at the door of 221B. John stops behind her. While he has not seen the flat in many months, never has it been so bare; the bookshelves have been emptied, the tables and walls cleared, the odds and ends packed away and stored. All that remains was the furniture - including the two armchairs of entirely clashing styles - and a small pile of things that Mrs. Hudson's not ready to put in a box. Among them is the skull (John looked away when he caught sight of the fracture in its cap), a defunct smartphone, a crystal ashtray, and an out-of-tune violin.

The pile seems small in the empty room. They do not burn inside or out when John touches them.

"Why not his room?" John hears himself say.

"Why not?" She murmurs back.

 

When the doorknobs turns, John expects there to be more of a dramatic pause. But the taxi is waiting. Real-life has no time for such drama.  
 _What do real people have in their real lives?_

  
The door opens. John makes himself take a breath.

 

Sherlock's bedroom is already quite bare. There's a bed and a wardrobe, a few things on the wall (including a Judo certificate and periodic table). The bed is made up, its sheets plainly colored yet finely made, as John rubs a section of the sheets between his fingertips. No clutter anywhere, as John sets the pile of knick-knacks on Sherlock's tidied bed; far unlike the catastrophe of paper and doodads and mysterious substances that had lasted their entire coinhabitance.   
Of course: downstairs was where the work, the thinking, the detective happened, while upstairs had been for rest between cases, for when Sherlock could no longer avoid sleep.

_Now he sleeps forever…_

"I'll leave you be for a moment." Before John can argue, the click of her heels are already halfway down the hall, then clip-clip-clip down the stairs, leaving John alone in the empty, sunlit room.

His breathing seems startlingly loud.

The book of poetry presses against his chest. He absently takes it out and flips to a random page.

 

> In deep nights I dig for you like treasure.  
>  For all I have seen  
>  that clutters the surface of my world  
>  is poor and paltry substitute  
>  for the beauty of you that has not happened yet.

John brushes his fingertips against the wardrobe doors. Once upon a time, Sherlock put his own fingertips to their handles, pulled them open as John does now.

The closet is immaculately kept, just as the rest of the room was. Everything straight and neat, each article of clothing in its proper place, though to think of Sherlock as proper anything seems laughable to John.  
His hands reach out to touch the shirts. 

 

> My hands are bleeding from digging.  
>  I lift them, hold them open in the wind,  
>  So they can branch like a tree.

By impulse, he pulls one out. It's white, silken, cool to his touch; it's been a while since they had last been worn. White seems odd on Sherlock, if one didn't know any better. But John knows better. John who has seen Sherlock's eyes by the pool when he himself was revealed as the final pip. John who has seen the high-functioning sociopath fall apart at a small inn at Dartmoor. John, who carries the man's dying words in his ear.  
John who had to watch.

He does not see the purple shirt, but that's because it rests somewhere else, he remembers all of a sudden.  
Along with the scarf and the coat, and the pile of pale, shaking bones they clothed.

In the corner by the window rests a folded-telescope. A chill runs down John's back. He sees in his mind's eye a young, wild-eyed Sherlock, peering at the stars with a hungry look, then scribbling something on a pad of paper about his observations. Sherlock would not smile of course; he doesn't smile when in the midst of exploration. 

 

> Reaching, these hands would pull you out of the sky  
>  as if you had shattered there,  
>  dashed yourself to pieces in some wild impatience.

Didn't. Didn't smile.

_Dead._

When would that ever make sense to John?

 

He forgets why he presses the fabric to his nose, why he feels the need to take a sniff. But no, two years have passed; Sherlock and his scent have long gone. Sherlock is long gone.

"So long," he whispers hollowly. The wardrobe shuts with a moan, pushing a breeze that chills John to the bone.

 

> What is this I feel falling now,  
>  falling on this parched earth,  
>  softly  
>  like a spring rain?
> 
> (II, 34)

 

  
And when all the lights are off and the windows locked and the refrigerator humming in its emptiness, John hands his key to Mrs. Hudson for the last time.   
"My boy," she breathes with a wobbly voice before tugging John in for a firm embrace. When they pull away, the old landlady grips his arms. "Don't you dare lose touch."

"I'll make sure he won't." On the stairs stands a smiling Mary, her eyes aglow beneath her bright orange cap.

Mrs. Hudson looks at her and frowns. "You take care of him now," she warns with a finger wag.

"Ta, Mrs. Hudson." He kisses the old landlady on the cheek. 

"Take care of him now," she mutters under her breath. "He needs someone who can care for him proper..." Tears stream down to her jawline. 

John takes hold of Mary's bird-wing hand. She throws him a smile; he unconsciously returns it. And together, they walk out of 221 Baker Street.  
He forces himself not to look over his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After great pain a formal feeling comes--  
> The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;  
> The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?  
> And yesterday--or centuries before?
> 
> The feet, mechanical, go round  
> A wooden way  
> Of ground, or air, or ought,  
> Regardless grown,  
> A quartz contentment, like a stone.
> 
> This is the hour of lead  
> Remembered if outlived,  
> As freezing persons recollect the snow--  
> First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
> 
> _\--Emily Dickinson_


	2. When

_7:32pm_

John taps his leather shoes on the taxi floor. Traffic has hit him and locked him fast. Checking his watch won’t do any good. He does it anyway.

Shit.

* * *

_“How was your day, dear? Any excitement at the clinic?”_

_“If you call three cases of bad flu and the vending machine running out of Kit Kats excitement, then yeah.”_

_“You don’t need to be snippy.”_

_“I’m not- Sorry. You’re right, I’m sorry. How was school?”_

_John tries to pay attention to Mary’s chatter on and on about her ‘children’ as she calls them, how they cut out little snowflakes, only two kids had to be put in timeout for using the scissors to stab the dog on the cover of See Spot Run._

_John tries his best not to snicker._

* * *

_7:45pm_

Something’s had a fender bender ahead. Cars honk and buses screech and everything’s a mess.

John takes a deep breath. It’s out of his hands now.

He texts Mary about being late.

He ignores the contact name right beneath hers. Though that particular man was probably watching him right now with a devilish smirk on his face.

Could Mycroft control the traffic lights?

No, no, John’s just being paranoid.

 

(He probably can though).

* * *

_“Have you seen the news?”_

_“Mhm?” John hasn’t even had coffee yet, let alone checked the telly._

_“Some MP got shot last night,” said Mary. “Named Ronald Adair. Killed in his own bedroom. Can you believe it?”_

_“No.” Yes. Up until a year ago that was-_

_Old news now._

_The woman on the telly chatters: “...interrogating the household, police have found no suspect yet. What’s most surprising is that investigators have not found a gun or bullet casing in the room. However, Mr. Adair had not leave his room prior to the shoot and the door was locked from the inside...”_

_“Someone could’ve scaled the building side, you know,” mutters John over the lip of his coffee._

_“How?” scoffs Mary. “Scale the side of a twelve-story building? You think a monkey did this?”_

_He shrugs. “Or a spider.”_

* * *

_8:05pm_

Finally, he’s made it to the restaurant. Mary stands outside the door, her posture straight as a ruler. She wears a black dress and a light-pink shawl, and her buttery curls have been pulled back into a bun secured by a butterfly pin.

“Sorry, so sorry, I’m late.” He runs out of the cab, kisses her, dashes back to throw a few bills at the cabbie, runs to kiss Mary, and holds the door open to let her inside.

His hand flies to his left pocket. There’s still a lump there.

Good.

Though he hardly feels relieved yet.

* * *

_“Oh.”_

_John blinks. That’s not the reaction he expected out of Molly. He expected her to be giddy and jumpy, to squeal until his ears bleed and tell him how exciting it is._

_Instead, all he gets is an ‘oh.’_

_“Oh?”_

_“Sorry.” She shakes her head with a forced smile. The blood has run out of her face. “It’s, erm-”_

_“Y’alright, Molly? You look a bit peaked?”_

_“Peaked? Yeah, maybe.” Her lower lip quivers. Even her eyes are getting glossy “I do feel a bit sick, sorry.” She begins to back away from him, towards the door. “Sorry, erm, congrats, sorry…”_

_And Molly runs out, leaving John standing in the laboratory absolutely baffled._

* * *

_8:35pm_

John’s checking his watch compulsively. The service is abysmal. Yes, it was Saturday night but there was no excuse to wait forty minutes for salad-

“Calm down, John, it’s alright.” Mary places a delicate hand on his forearm. “It’ll come.”

“It better come soon, though.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Hm? Yeah, fine, why?”

“Fine-fine or Italian Job-fine? ‘Cause you’re looking pretty freaked-out, insecure-”

“Neurotic and emotional,” he finished with a smile. “Sorry, just hungry. Everything’s fine, I promise.”

His pocket presses against him like a lead weight.

* * *

_“John, you don’t have to, really,” pleads Mary._

_“C’mon, John, i’s alright.”_

_“My cousins have been shooting since they were twelve; you don’t have to join them, and if you do, you don’t have to match them shot for shot. It’s alright, John.”_

_“Le’s see your best shot, eh? You’re in the countryside, le’s have some family fun.”_

_One of Mary’s cousins holds the rifle out to John. “You ever used a gun before?”_

_John gives a noncommittal shrug. “Once or twice.”_

_“Tha’s the trigger.” Another cousin steps forward and jabs a demonstrating finger at the fun. “And tha’s where the bullets go. And tha’s-”_

_“Thanks.” John seizes the gun. “I can manage.”_

_“Whooey, sorr-ee.” The cousin steps away with mock fear. Another cousin grumbles in Mary’s ear: “Your bloke’s got some bite to him.”_

_She gives him a weary shrug. What can I do?_

_“Alright.” Mary’s uncle steps up to John and points up into the tree line. “Tha’s where you wanna shoot. The pidgeons’ll come out when I throw the rock. Try to shoot ahead of where they’ll go, ey? And it’s your first try, lad.” He claps a hand on John’s bad shoulder. John stifles a groan. “Don’t get yourself down.”_

_“Ready?”_

_“Five pounds says he doesn’t.”_

_“Well of course he can’t, I’m not losin’ a fiver over this.”_

_“Three!”_

_“Remember, all that’s ridin’ on this is your relationship with Mary!”_

_He hears a smack. Someone lets out a howl._

_“Two!”_

_“Let’s go, Johnny boy!”_

_“Oh, I’m on the seat of me knickers for this-”_

_“One- go!”_

 

_Mary’s uncle hurls the stone. The thunk sends a whirlwind of frightened squawks into the air._

_“Go ‘head and shoo-!”_

_Bang. One falling bird. Bang. Another. Bang. A third._

 

_The only sound to be heard in the glen is the soft rustle of falling wings on the forest floor._

 

_“Wha- What kind of doctor did ye say you are?” Mary’s uncle is as pale as a sheet._

_“Clinic.” John shoves the gun back in one of the cousins’ hands. “But did some work in the field when I was in Afghanistan. Got shot though. The army sent me back.”_

_Everyone remains slack-jawed._

 

_Mary suddenly whirls around and stomps back towards the cabin. The glen shudders as the front door slams behind her._

* * *

_6:20pm_

“John, you’re gonna be late!”

“I know, I know, Amelia!”

“Make sure you got everything, especially-”

“Yes, yes, I’ll remember that.” He stops in his rush to smile at the receptionist. “Wish me luck?”

She rolls her eyes, but can’t hold back her giddy grin. “Get your arse moving, or Mary’ll have your head instead of your hand!”

He sprints out the door. Over his shoulder, he hears: “And good luck!”

* * *

_Briing._

_“‘Ello?”_

_“Harry?”_

_“Yea.”_

_“It’s-”_

_“I know it’s you.”_

_“...”_

_“...”_

_“I’m sorry about what I said. That day. And, I’m sorry that I pushed you out, acted like I didn’t want you there-”_

_“Oh, that was just acting?”_

_“No, I guess not, I didn’t want you there at the time. But now, I regret it, and I’m sorry.”_

_“...Alright.”_

_“Alright.”_

_“Anything else?”_

_“I was wondering if you, um wanted to come down to London for a bit. Stay with me and my girlfriend.”_

_“...your girlfriend.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Thanks for that load of salt in the wound, you prat”_

_“Wait, Harry-”_

_“Burn in hell, big brother.”_

_Click._

* * *

_John later finds Mary inside the cabin, sitting in an armchair with her head in her hands. He takes the chair across from her._ _They sit for a while in silence, watching the fire crackle and hiss._

_“You’re a veteran.” Her hands muffle her words._

_John is still. “...yeah.”_

_Night falls. Outside, Mary’s uncle and cousins roar and howl over home-brewed ale. The fire burns slowly. It only makes the silence more palpable._

_“You’ve been in war.” She uncovers her face; her red eyes glitter with tears. “You’ve seen people killed. You’ve maybe even killed people yourself.”_

_He rubs his knuckles, a stone growing in his chest._

_“And all this time,” she croaks, “I’ve just thought you were a doctor at St. Barts and that’s all.”_

_John taps his fingers on the armchair, watching the flames try to lick the roof of the fireplace._

_“Why’d you never tell me?” Her eyes are wide and glossy, filled with betrayal._

_John’s insides have frozen over._

_“John-”_   
_“I knew how it’d go over.” He keeps his eyes fixed to the flame. “I knew you’d react like this, that you’d start thinking of me differently. You’d be more careful, more cautious. If I ever am quiet, you’ll think I’m remembering the dead. If I ever get angry, you’ll be scared for your life. You’ll treat me like a bomb, afraid if you say the wrong word or do the wrong thing, that I’ll go and blow my head off, or your head off, maybe. And after a while, you won’t be able to take it and you’ll leave. And that’ll be that.”_

_A moment of silence. Suddenly there’s a cheer outside and the family breaks into a raucous semblances of song. All is still inside though._

_John gets up. “I’ll pack my things.”_

_“No.”_

_Her tear-stricken eyes give him the most determined glare that she can muster. It’s almost adorable. “Mary-”_

_“John, I love you. All of you. From the tips of your hair to the edge of your toes. I don’t care if you’re a veteran. I care that you never told me.” She sniffles and turns away. “It makes me wonder what else you haven’t told me.”_

_John’s insides turn even colder._

* * *

_“Does she even know?”_

_“Know about what?”_

_“You know.” Stamford gives him a look, his lips thin with guilt._

_“You can say Sherlock’s name, you know.”_

_“Alright, fine. Does she know about Sherlock?”_

_“Probably. Everyone in London reads the paper.”_

_“Yeah, but does she know about you and Sherlock? Have you told her anything?”_

_John rubs his nose. He starts looking intently at his phone._

_“Oh, God, you haven’t, have you.”_

_“Waiter? Check please?”_

* * *

_Yesterday, 3:45pm_

“Here you are, Mister Watson.” The man beams like it’s Christmas as he hands over the pressed and primped black suit. He always beams like it’s Christmas. Must be the laundering fumes.

“Thanks, Harold.” John wrestles out his wallet and exchanges a credit card for the suit, which he examines with less delicate care than its cleaner. “Looks great, as always.”

“Thank you very much, always pleasure, always pleasure,” chirps Harold. Clack-clack go the ancient computer keys. The machines in the back whirl and rumble like mechanical circus animals. “You know, sir…” Harold beckons John to lean in close to him. Bleach and citrus prod at John’s nostrils. “I believe, sir.”

“You believe in what?”

“In Mister Holmes, sir.”

John goes stockstill.

Harold blinks, beaming without a clue of what he really just said to John.

“Thanks.” The doctor shoves the credit card in his wallet as fast as he can and snatches up the suit

Harold’s grin never falters; in fact it grows even wider. “I always believe in Sherlock Holmes.”

John can’t get out the door fast enough.

* * *

_“Oh, John, that’s - that’s wonderful!” Mrs. Hudson pulls John into a surprisingly firm embrace. “I’m so so happy for you! Oh! I’m so glad you are over...well, you know.”_

_Just like that John’s spirits topple over. “Mrs. Hudson, for the last time, he and I were never-”_

_“Oh, I only mean about your grief, John.” Her hand waves dismissively. “I was worried about you, you know, being holed up upstairs all the time all alone - Biscuit?” He takes one, then two. “That’s not good to do when...a friend...passes…”_

_Mrs. Hudson goes quiet. Without a word, he takes her hand; it is shuddering._

_“Oh, bless you John,” she moans in a choked tone. “Don’t you worry, I’m just being silly. Now” - she takes a deep breath and forces a beam - “tell me, John: does Mary make you happy?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Really?”_

_“I feel happy to have her.”_

_“And you love her?”_

_“Yea, yeah.”_

_She raises her eyebrows at him._

_“I, um, yeah I love her. I think. I mean, we’re good together. She can cook and I can clean and we wear matching jumpers to her Christmas parties and I know about her father and she knows about Afghanistan now and about...not much about him, actually.” He licks his lips nervously. “And well, we’ve stuck together, haven’t we? For over two years, now. She puts up with me and I her and we get along quite nicely.” His fingers fold together and fidget._

_“John…” Her eyes are soft and pitying. “That is not love.”_

_Then John drops his head in shame. “I know,” he mumbles._

_A feather falling could disturb the silence between them._

* * *

_9:06pm_

They finally receive their entrees. The waiter apologizes for the slow service. John simply grunts and waves his hand. Mary thinks his irritation is funny.

“How was your day?” he asks, funneling his irritation into cutting his steak.

Another story about her children, how excited they are for spring, to go outside and have it warm again. One boy in particular: he brings a magnifying glass with him everywhere and would spend hours upon hours just studying a single patch of grass. He’s very quiet, though, and eats lunch alone though. “I have to stop some boys from calling him ‘freak’ every once in a while,” she adds with a shrug. “So how goes your day?”

“...oh, boring, boring as usual.”

John ignores the twists in his gut.

* * *

_“So I was thinking about this Ronald Adair case-”_

_“Oh, John you’ve been on that for weeks now. Coming up with every ridiculous theory in the world. It was endearing for a while, but can’t you just let it go?”_

_It’s the first time he’s seen her snap._

* * *

_“John,” says the old landlady, smiling gently. “Marry her if you like. Maybe you’ll fall in love someday. Or maybe not and what you have will still be enough. I felt love once, or twice rather: when my husband and I first began our courtship, and then after the divorce with...Oh that’s a long story.”_

_“Sorry what?” John begins to grin mischievously._

_“It was decades or so ago, doesn’t matter much now.” She looked away, barely able to hide the red in her cheeks._

_“Oh, but Mrs. Hudson…”_

_“Honest, it was hardly anything! I was a divorcee-slash-widow in Brazil and he was a very nice man who wrote songs on the beach and would look at me like I was the stars and moon.” John chokes on his tea. Mrs. Hudson glares at him. “It didn’t even last more than a summer, but he reminded me what it was like to have joy, you know, to have someone set your heart on fire.”_

_The room falls silent again. John smirks, then weaves his hands together. There’s a small crack at the base of Mrs. Hudson’s old teapot. She probably doesn’t know it’s there, but one day when she puts it on the stove and the seams can no longer hold…_

_He hopes Mrs. Hudson will not be in the room when it happens._

_“So, I suppose my advice to you is (and whether you take it or not is entirely out my hands), marriage is a very, very, very big deal. You’ve got to do it for the right reasons.”_

_“I’ve spent enough time around fires for a lifetime,” John snaps, turning away. “The last one ended three years ago.”_

_Time stops._

_(It's out. He said it aloud.)_

_Everything becomes glass._

__(There’s no taking it back.)_ _

__

_Mrs. Hudson doesn’t even notice that he’s brought up the source of her own grief. Oh John, cries her face without a word, oh you poor thing._

_You poor, sad soul._

* * *

_John sits hunched at the edge of the bed, rubbing his temples. He doesn’t turn towards Mary._

_“John, is everything-?”_

_“Fine, just fine,” he grumbles. But then he turns to her and smiles. “Sorry, just can’t sleep.” He takes her hand and kisses it gently. “I’ll be back to bed when I can.”_

_Mary watches him leave until the door is shut behind him._

_In a moment of paranoia, she waits for a second door to open and close: the front door._

_She hears nothing._

_It doesn’t help her go back to sleep, though._

* * *

_9:49pm_

“John, are we ready for dessert?” Mary looks to him and smiles softly, her characteristic Mary smile.

Whether she knows it or not, it feels like his cue. John takes one last gulp of wine and seizes her hand just as it raises to signal the waiter. She whirls around, her mouth opening to question what John was doing until she watches him slide out of his chair and prop himself up on one knee.

“Mary,” he begins, a lump rising in his throat. Christ, she’ll say yes. John’s no expert in human nature, but  he knows she’ll say yes. It’s a matter of John, if he’s ready to ask the question.

He’s on one knee. Half the restaurant has their eyes on them. Mary’s cheeks are widening by the minute. There’s no going back now.

“So, erm we’ve together for a while now. It’s not all been romantic and dreamy; it’s had its ups and downs. Hell, we met when I defended your honor at a pub.” She snickers behind tears. He manages a smirk himself. “And um, I guess, I would like to defend your honor for the rest of your life, if you want, and you’re willing to put up with my horrible inability to be cute and romantic.”

Half a dozen women nearby breathe little adoring ‘aww’s, their eyes bright with glee and maybe even a hint of envy.

“So.” John swallows. Everyone in the restaurant has become an audience. Some of the servers have tears in their eyes. There’s even people staring from the door, for Christ’s sake. “Miss Mary Morstan, will you-”

The door.

Standing there.

Snow-white skin.

Black curls.

Flinty blue eyes, too stricken to be a ghost’s.

 

The entire universe comes crashing down.

 

_“Sherlock?”_

 

The figure rushes out. Without even a split second’s thought, John dashes after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JOHN YOU FUCKING TWAT.  
> Hope you enjoyed. Doing my best not to demonize Mary despite my obvious shipping biases. Feedback totally welcomed. Thank for reading!


	3. Now

John barrels out the door like an elephant. Cold floods his lungs. The city screams in his ears. His nerves are on fire. He sees everything with such shocking ice-cold clarity that it hurts. “Watch it, mate,” grumble the strollers in apathetic tones as John whirls around. Their words don’t reach him. They have no right anyway to act like everything’s fine, like the edge of reality isn’t fraught with cracks snaking across the screen.

No sign of him. (Him? Who’s him?) Where to look? Where did he go (Was it even him?) How far can he have gotten? (Did John mistake someone else for him?) Did he walk? (Is John hallucinating now?) Did he take a cab? (What is John even doing?)

 _No,_ growls his gut. John has caught doppelgangers before but never has it made his heart want to claw out of his chest, made his lungs forget how to breathe. _It_ was _him_ , every instinct in his body screamed. _It. Was. Him._

Everything is moving too fast in John for him to think anymore than that, to wonder how and why.

It doesn’t even occur to him.

_Where is he? Where, where, where-_

There.

Farther down the pavement, swoops the back flap of a black coat, belonging to some ducked head that walks away with long, urgent strides.

 _“Sherlock!”_ rips out of his lungs like a shotgun shell.

 

The dark man walks on, but for a split second - a fraction of a flash, so fleeting it probably never occurred yet so blinding that John cannot see anything else – he lifts his foot and hesitates.

 

 

Everything bursts apart and smashes back together. It doesn't make a single sound.

 

 

It’s him.

 

Alive.

 

Not dead.

 

But _he fell_. His body made a squelch as it hit the pavement. It. He became an it, a body, a cadaver, a suicide, in a lick under 2 seconds. John saw the blood. Christ, the blood floods his vision every night. John had tumbled down, wanting to join the side of the man on the pavement where he belongs. _I’m always by your side, always._

 _But it’s you_.

_Here._

_Now._

_But you have to be a ghost, so thin and pale, ready to fade away if I try to touch._

_Go away!_ _No don't leave! Leave me! I hate you! I need you!_

It’s him.

_It’s you._

Here.

 _Here_.

_You're dead._

_Please, (don't) be dead._

_No, yes, no, no- what the_ fuck _is going on_ _._

“Sher-” It comes out a wheeze. People skirt around him, passing a half-glance as everything in John tumbles out and he’s now made of nothing and the world turns black and then white and then grey and what if it was it all a dream? What if John is dreaming now? Or is he finally institutionalized? Or maybe he never met Sherlock Holmes after all. Or maybe John's dead, or dying. Or it was just yesterday that Sherlock fell. No, it was John who fell, John who tossed his phone off to the side, spread his pale arms like a swan, and dove into the gray water. His broken ship finally sails off the edge of the world.

"John?"

He's in hospital now. The damn pills they're giving him. It makes him hear things, hear dead men, hear figments of his imagination.

“John, are you alright?”

Everything is bucking and breaching. John is falling apart.

_"Watson! Captain Watson!"_

John’s a nutter now. _Come see the nutter, children. Come see empty pitcher of a man._

"John, you're in the midst of a panic attack. Take deep breaths.”

The nurses, they work for Moriarty; they’re flooding his lungs with sand.

_"He's been shot!- Captain Watson!”_

But wait: Moriarty’s dead.

“John, you need to breathe. It’s alright. It’s alright.”

_Where am I? Where am I?_

_“Captain! John! stay with me!"_

_It’s white and melty and bright and I feel nothing and everything all at once._

But it doesn't matter where...

“Stay-”

“ _Stay with me!”_

...it’s hell either way.

"Taxi!- Breathe, John! In! Out!"

_"Fucking hey, call command, tell ‘em to get a doctor!-It's alright, John, we're not gonna lose you- "_

"Taxi!"

“ _For fuck’s sake, a bloody doctor!”_

“Taxi!”

_“Fucking doctor, now!”_

" _I am- a fucking- doctor_." It comes out half-choked; the sands of Afghanistan fill his mouth, fill his lungs and it becomes a sea of sand. He tries to swim up to the light, but his arm won’t move, his legs won’t kick.

It’s alright.

Down he drifts, down, down.

It’s alright.

The glimmer of light above grows dimmer and dimmer.

“…alright,” something murmurs above the surface of the sea and darkness folds him into his embrace.

Drowning and falling don't feel so different, you know.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in a head-pounding haze. The room is dim and fuzzy. _Where am I?_ Blood’s pooling in his hands from something hard and cold digging into his wrists-

Handcuffs. His arms pull but they can’t go far without a clink. He’s handcuffed to a chair.

For a moment, he’s been captured again, only now they’ve taken him to camp and they’ll interrogate him and the last time anyone will maybe see him is in a video with an AK-47 to his head with a grubby newspaper held in front of him. But no, says his nose, that’s not the smell of Afghanistan. There are whiffs of grime, of mustiness, of sour chemicals and-

His back stiffens. He knows exactly where he is. Largely because now his vision has cleared and he can make out the wallpaper.  
As well as the figure in front of him, leaning against the edge of an old desk, lanky and pale and _real._

 “...You!”

“Me, yes,” replies a weary Sherlock. He rests his chin pensively on his right hand while his left arm folds under to support his right arm. His expression is inscrutable. A pair of arctic blue eyes has locked on John.

“You're-”

“Not dead, yes,” he drawls with a bored finger flick. “I see you've lost none of your observation skills during my absence.”

“No, you're a fucking _twat_ is what you are!” John jumps in his chair but doesn’t get far. The handcuff rattle and clang. His legs are tied down too. John doesn’t care. John wants nothing less than to pummel the man before him.

“Yes, I rather expected such a reaction.” Sherlock’s tone is so blasé, so maddeningly casual. “And so I took the necessary precautions so I could explain myself-“

“ _Before I bash your skull in and dump your bleeding carcass in a sewer!”_

“Something along those lines, yes.” He brushes back a black curl, as if all that John’s bellows do for him is disturb his hair.

Red bleeds into John’s vision.  
“ _Don't you dare think for a second I’m being funny, you_ prick _!”_ His insides are firing like pistons. His body is shaking like a hypothermic.

“Yes, yes.” Sherlock sighs. “Go on, let it all out.”

“ _You_ arsehole _!”_ hisses John, wincing at the crack in his own voice. _“You utter_ bastard! _You cold, heartless psychopathic_ -"

“Not a psychopath, and not heartless,” murmurs Sherlock, staring into the kitchen.

“ _What the fuck did you say!?"_

“Are you quite finished?” The arctic eyes flicker up to the ceiling. His entire frame radiates ‘bored’.

John gapes at him, stunned from the white-hot slap of Sherlock’s uncaring. Rage churns in every one of his cells. He loses control of his mouth, his muscles, his brain as liquid fury works its way around his body.

Sherlock, cool-faced per always, quirks his head and flicks his eyes at John as a check-up. “If you’ll at least contain your rage for approximately 6 minutes, I shall explain what I've been up to.”

 _No_ , John silently screams. Sherlock will fly through the wall because of John bellows. Sherlock will be bruised and battered from the words John hurls at his body. Sherlock will be slashed and slit from the blade of John’s tongue. But suddenly, the firestorm dies; the carnal fury has boiled every tissue, melted every bone in him - _emptied him and left him out to dry_. He has nothing left in him, nothing to keep his head from dropping or his back from caving or his lips from releasing an oddly controlled yet thorough sigh. John’s body surrenders. The thought leaves him hollow and numb.

 “Much obliged,” says Sherlock, completely misunderstanding John’s silence. “Moriarty died on the rooftop, but his work did not. His network of contacts and clients extended across the entirety of Europe, with thickening branches that reached towards Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. The bulk of his web’s activity, however, clustered around a dozen or so circles around the continent, each with their own key leaders. To list all the criminal enterprises Moriarty had at least a toe or two in…well, to be honest, after a point, it became more practical to keep track only his major operations, which still was no small number. His reach was impressive, to say the least.  
"Anyway, Moriarty’s death left a power vacuum, and many gambling big to take his place. As predicted, they were desperate to beat out their rivals and emboldened by my death (their last real threat). This forced them to move in haste, and with increased stupidity. It was easy to spot the clusters. Then it was a matter of dispelling them, which required a bit more time. I employed a range of tactics from sabotaging their operations, enraging their clientele to the point of retaliation, or carrying out a hit myself. I’ve systematically taken apart every single center, all but one.”

Sherlock falls silent, flickering his gaze to John. His fingers press against the bow of his lips.

John is quiet for a moment, processing all that Sherlock has told him. “But then why'd you come back now, you son of a bitch?” he mutters with a bite.

Sherlock frowns. “I have reason to believe that the last agent is in London. Agent, not leader; when Moriarty was alive, he operated mainly as his right-hand man. Before he’s been in deep hiding, but nowI suspect that he’s figured out that my death was not quite so permanent as most believed.” Something twists in John’s gut. “So he plans, I believe, to draw me into the open and take me out. That would allow him to slip into Moriarty’s former role quite seamlessly – since I’ve unintentionally cleared the way for him – and I suppose to also carry out a measure of revenge. Mixing business and pleasure, that’s his style. Hence why he took out that MP Adair.”

“That was him?” blurts out John. But as soon as Sherlock looks up, his eyes focus on the ground.

“Yes,” say Sherlock in a strange tone. Why?- _no_ , John would not look at him. “His background is military. Special forces; noted in his file as a prodigious sniper. Actually served in Afghanistan.” A shiver runs up John’s spine. Sherlock threw in that fact on purpose, he is sure of it. “Dishonorably discharged after it was found out that he spent his free time picking off Afghan locals for fun. That’s when Moriarty found him.”

The carpet is as musty as ever. The color however seems bolder and brighter than John has ever seen it, at least since- _no. No, no no._  
“So now he’s in London.”

An affirmative grunt. “There’s few links between him and Adair. An outstanding gambling debt from when they went to uni together is all I could find.”

“But Adair-“ _stop it, John, stop it_.

“Went to Cambridge, I am aware,” finishes Sherlock without a second thought. He remains oblivious of John's anguish. “As did the agent for a time. He dropped out after two years and headed into the military shortly thereafter. Anyhow, I’m inclined to believe that the assassination of Adair was simply a message; it was him showing off, catching my interest and of course the interest of Moriarty’s former clientele. Next if he wishes to draw me out, he’ll go after…” He lets his voice trail off. His slender white fingers rub his temples in small, pensive circles. A strange light in his eyes makes him look worried. Almost. John, of course, knows better.  
"I need someone who is also ex-military, who can think like him. Who can be of use. Who I can trust."

John does not meet Sherlock's gaze. Instead, a growl rumbles at his throat. “So the Great Sherlock Holmes is not infallible after all.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “If you're going to be vindictive-"

“Woe is he!” John packs his tone with acid. “He has to come to bumbling, blundering, humble Ol' John Watson, his loyal pet, who will follow him to the bitter end no matter how many times he kicks him.”

“John, I realize that my actions may have made you upset-"

“ _Upset,"_ he spitters. "You think I am _upset_? When teenage girls are stood up by dates, that's being _upset_. When mummy burns dinner, that's being _upset._ ”

“John, you do not fully understand-“

“Fuck you, do you even _understand_ what I’ve _been through!?_ Can your stupid, _stupid_ genius brain even _contemplate_ what pain you put me through!? _”_

“There were some consequences I was willing to accept, yes-“

“ _You, you_ were willing-“ John lets out a caustic laugh that rakes at his insides. “Because of you, every night I’d watch you die again. Over and _over_ again. Sometimes I’d think about dumping your chemistry set into my coffee, just so I’d _stop_ watching you die. For weeks, i could not leave this flat for fear I’d let myself fall under a bus. I’ve put a _gun_ in my mouth, Sherlock. A _gun_.”

Silence falls like a hammer.

 Sherlock’s fingers steeple together. His eyes gaze at the floor, distant, cold. He’s perched him on the back of the black armchair. 

“I…I see.”

 _His_ chair, the one so empty for three cold, aching years.  
John has to look away.

“I realize now I, um” – Sherlock’s voice is soft and delicate – “I must have miscalculated your emotional attachment at the time-“

“A _miscalculation_.” Fury shakes John like a can of pop. “You sent me in a blind black _depression_ and you treat it like a piece of _fucking data_!” All John wants is to rip out the cold, black heart of the man before him and make him watch as John crushes it between his fingers.

“At the time, I accepted the possibility of such...consequences in favor over-"

“Over fucking _what_ , Sherlock!” gasps John, shutting his eyes tight from the sudden wave of flashbacks to that day. _Please, do it for me?-_

“Over your dead body.”

John’s eyes rip open. Sherlock is a marble statue. There’s no fervent twitching or restlessness; only his chest, rising and falling with his breath, gives away his humanity. His eyes, cold and still, do not meet John’s.

“Moriarty did not threaten me on the rooftop, not directly,” murmurs the statue. “Three bullets - for you, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson - if the world did not see me fall. He could’ve just named one bullet, and he still would have had me.” The Arctic eyes snap to John’s; they are at once cold and quivering, scared and determined. "Which would you rather: me being dead for a little while, or you being dead forever?"

Sherlock scared has rattled John as it is. “...But you don't-“

“No, I will not lose you, not if I can ever help it, not if there’s two brain cells and a single synapse still firing in my brain.”

The ferocity he finishes with steals the words from John’s throat. A hard, heavy silence follows. Sherlock averts his gaze to elsewhere and he draws himself a turtle-like pose. John looks away, too, after realizing he has been gaping. The silence lasts forever. A jolt of surprise twinges in John whenever he looks over to the armchair and remembers he’s not alone. The surprise has a sour aftertaste.   
  
 _I was alone, and it was your fault._

“I would have died for you.” John grinds the words out of his stomach onto his tongue. 

“And that's exactly the situation I sought to prevent,” replies Sherlock without missing a beat. “Again, John, me dead briefly, or you dead for good? I was the one who had to go, because I was the only one capable of making a plan to survive.”

Another choked laugh escapes John. “Oh, the only one capable. You haven't changed a bit, have you.”

“But don't you see.” Sherlock’s voice rises in urgency. ”I had to die in order to save you!"

“Well, I fucking died anyway, Sherlock!”

Sherlock furrows his brow. His eyes narrow at John in simple confusion.

John lets his head drop with a heavy sigh. He closes his eyes. “You left me.”

“Yes, but-"

“You lied to me.”

“I had to, it was the only-“

“And you made me watch.”

“Watch what- _o_ _h._ ”

John can no longer keep his tone even. His body is trembling, but no longer with anger. “You died that day. You threw yourself off a rooftop and you made me _watch_.” His eyelids press together even tighter.

“I needed to convince you I was dead.”

“Oh, I can't fucking _believe_ you-“

“I needed you to think I was dead, and that I wasn't worth searching for.”

“I hate you,” snarl John. He ignores the twitch in Sherlock’s throat. “I hate you, you _heartless, heartless_ bastard-“

“On the contrary, John: I gave up my life precisely because I have a heart. And Moriarty found it.”

"Moriarty, Moriarty, I've had it up to  _here_ with Moriarty and your fucking games-"

“It was you.”

"I-"

_What._

 

Maybe John misheard, but no, those eyes locked on him won’t let him even consider that.

Time hitches again.

 

“Moriarty gave a choice,” says Sherlock, his voice low. “And no matter what I chose, I had to give you up. Go on living without you, or have you go on living without me.”

The knots in John’s stomach twist and turn. “And you decided for me-“

“I decided to give you life, yes,” snarls Sherlock in a blood-chilling tone. Then he takes a long, pained breath. “I tried to make you think I was a fraud, make you hate me and hopefully forget me and move on. I tried to limit your pain, John. I tried to help you move on, even if that meant that I had to give up the one person who ever told me I was fantastic. The one man who looked at me with real respect and admiration, who believed in me, who forgave me for my flaws, who never...who never called me freak.” Sherlock’s hands have balled into tight white fists. They are shaking.

John has forgotten how to breathe again.

“So, don't think for a second,” spits the consulting detective, his voice wavering for the first time in …ever, “that I cheated Moriarty's game, that I got myself out without paying a thing. No. That day, I sacrificed something far more precious to me than my own 'life': I had to sacrifice having you.”

 

Outside…no, there is nothing outside. London could be burning right now and John will not look or listen. He is rooted to this moment, where Sherlock has clawed out his own heart and laid it at John’s feet. That explains why Sherlock is bent over his knees, long fingers threaded into a mop of limp curls.

For a long time the only sound to be heard is John breathing.

 

“Uncuff me.”

Sherlock’s head whips up. John stares straight ahead, his jaw clenched. A pause, then Sherlock takes long, cautious steps towards the chair. Once assured that John will not bite him (at least while handcuffed), there’s a jingle of tiny keys and the brush of cold fingers on John’s wrists and ankles. “Just, um,” John hears Sherlock stammer, as his wrists are made free and blood returns to his fingertips. “If you could use your hands only.”

Once John is free, Sherlock steps from the chair into the middle of the room. His upper teeth chew on his lower lip. His body stiffens as John lifts a hand to rub his own wrists, almost as though Sherlock is bracing for someth- _oh._

 _Hands only_. John goes cold with understanding. _Hands only_. As in please no bats, no chairs, no books. _Hands only_. Because _I know I’ve wronged you_ _and I know it has consequences. I’ll let you punch me_ , _but please don’t beat me to death._

John feels his feet step forward. Sherlock tenses, but then spreads his finger, forcing himself to relax. A lump rolls down his pale throat. Another step forward and Sherlock closes his eyes. John winces for him.

Sherlock is wearing the purple shirt; the one that fell with him, the one John thought was gone and buried forever. There’s no spot, no outline of a blotch, no trace of blood. As if it never happened at all.

As if it never happened at all.

He lifts a finger and taps on one of the buttons. Sherlock twitches at the touch, then frowns, puzzled.

It’s nothing compared to his bewilderment when he is all of a sudden seized into a warm, firm bear hug.

“I- Wha-" he gasps out.

“Shh,” grumbles John into his shoulder, not releasing his grip one bit. Sherlock is warm and solid in his arms. Bony and a bit awkward, yes, but he is _there_. He is _alive_.

But.

“ _Friends. Don't. Lie. To. Friends_ ,” he half-growls. It's the sternest voice he can muster.

Skinny, sinewy hands reach around John, leaving tentative space between lanky arms and his torso. “...I'm sorry.”

“ _Friends. Don't. Make. Friends._ Watch.”

“I'm sorry for that too,” murmurs Sherlock as though hypnotized, still baffled by all of this. “Forgive me.”

“Swear it,” John growls into the silk shirt. “Swear it or I’ll kill you with my bare hands and this time it’ll be for real.”

“…I swear.”

Suddenly something breaks. Suddenly John is the one left gasping as long gawky limbs wrap around him and squeeze. Half his face is buried beneath a mop of curls as a marble head presses itself into John’s (good) shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” John hears rasping his shoulder.

“It's alright.”

A shudder wracks the gangly pile of limbs. “I'm so sorry,” croaks the gangly man. “Never again, John. I swear it.”

John smiles despite himself. “It's fine. It's all fine.”

He feels another shudder in his arms, then the broken chuckle rumbling by his ear. John joins him. His laugh sounds like a broken bagpipe. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. He’s here. Sherlock’s here. It’s him. _It’s you._ His best friend is here and alive.

 _One last miracle_.  
 _Do it for me_.  
Sherlock is  _alive_.

“You said to me once before.” Sherlock lifts his face out of John’s collarbone. His grip loosens a bit. Not much though.

“Did I?”

“Our first night.”  
Heat flames in John’s cheeks. They both release each other by instinct and look away for a second. John knows what he means, but he also knows what the phrase alone implies. _People might talk_.

“It was the first day we were flatmates,” repeats Sherlock stiffly. He looks away from John for a second. “We were at Angelo's. I told you I was married to my work, and-“

“I said it's all fine,” adds John.

Sherlock arches an eyebrow, but his lips quirk into a half smile. “You remember.”

“Yes, look at that, I'm capable of remembering a dinner.”

“I apologize.”

John raises his eyebrows. "You're still guilt-ridden?"

The flush in Sherlock’s gray-pink cheeks verges on adorable. “...yes.”

John can now see the wear of three years on his friend. Sherlock’s skin, always pale, has dulled and become waxy. It almost hangs on his forearms. Has Sherlock eaten at all while he was gone? Has he slept? John would believe him if he says he hasn’t, that the last food he touched was half a box of mediocre Chinese take-out three years ago. Through his trousers, his gangly limbs look extra bony. And the black hair no longer shines like it used to. Like it used to. As though it was just the other day that John was waking up in the morning to fingers in the freezer, dreadful smelling chemicals on the table, and a wild-eyed flatmate running around the sitting room, bugging the shit out of half of London by teatime.

John stifles a smile. It leaves a bittersweet ache inside.

“Good. You can sit with that for a while.” Sherlock hurt him, there’s no doubt about it, but “not forever” John adds hastily. Of course Sherlock wouldn’t stew in guilt for anything he feels justified to do for very long, but Sherlock also wouldn’t normally come apart in his arms.

John just wants to make sure.

“Erm, John,” says Sherlock. John can hear him swallow. “You know, about that dinner-"

“Oh sweet bloody Christ!” yelps John suddenly, throwing his hands to his head.

“What? What's wrong?”

“I bloody forgot about Mary!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES JOHN YOUR GIRLFRIEND, YOU FUCKING TWAT.  
> YOU BOTH ARE TWATS.  
> EVERYONE IS A TWAT.  
> (except for Mike, he's the greatest.)  
> Also, Sherlock's monologue is a bit modeled after his speeches in the Doyle canon. He's not exactly Mr. Laconic there, so I decided to carry it over here.
> 
> Almost done with this work/series! Any feedback you have for my writing style, the plot, character things, etc. would be most appreciated.  
> Also due to my forced Tumblr hiatus at the moment, I have no way to shamelessly self-promote this story (one less post to clog your tags!). So this is a huge huge favor to ask of you guys - and I'm happy enough just to have anyone read this story and like it :D - but if Ice Man really pumps up your jam, I'd love you for-bloody-ever if you were to help me market it.  
> But anyway, thank you so so much for reading and hope you continue to enjoy this!


	4. Between (Pt. I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perspective shift to our dashing consulting detective.

John says nothing more, simply rips on his jacket and wrenches the door open. Something clatters out of his jacket pocket. John's in too much haste to notice.  
(Fool.)  
(No, John's not a fool. Simply ignorant. Distracted.) (Understandable.)  
Leather pocketbook; well-used, often written in, the cover well rubbed beneath his fingers as Sherlock reaches down to grab-  
Sharp twinge, right side. Sherlock sucks through his teeth. _Pain_.  
(Pain is temporary, a feeling, experienced by nerve cells and processed by the lateral postcentral gyrus in his brain. _All in my head.) Release. Let go_. It thuds into a dull ache. (Better.)

The bullet just grazed him in Budapest, but it was still a nasty mess to clean up afterward. Doesn't matter. Past. Will heal.  
(Shall not let John find out.)

The leather pocketbook: in Sherlock's hands. A band around it; private journal. Full of John's thoughts, John's feelings, John's life. What does it say-?  
Sherlock puts it away. John has issues with privacy. Sherlock remembers that (remembers everything).

 

Had hoped he wouldn't remember Mary. Did very best not to some much as a hint at it.  
 _About that dinner-_ Dinner. That was the triggering word. _Idiot.  
_ (Not John; him.)

 

The flat falls silent without John. Somewhat of a blessing (how, when there's no John?). Now Sherlock can continue to explore it, see what had happened to John over the past three years.  
 _Why?_ Curiosity. _Why curious?_ _Why curious about John?_ True, John's ordinary, normal.  
Then he's showing (genuine) interest in the affairs of others. That's something friends do. He's being a (proper) friend. John will be pleased.  
(Hopefully.)

_I had to sacrifice having you._

 

It's like a paralytic, the memory. ( _Caring is not an advantage_.) _Delete thought from memory drive.  
_ Can't. Too recent. Deleting requires significant and precise mental energy. Has neither capacity at the moment. (Too excited, seeing John. John in the flat. John in his life. _John John_ -)  
 _Stop._ Will not get embarrassingly carried away. John's distracting him. (Should he remove the distraction?)  
Never.  
Thought perished. Easy. _John. Always_. Easy to imagine.

(but not easy at all, considering he left-)  
 _Stop._

Back to reality. The kitchen table: cleared (John moved out; not unusual). Old water stains on the table. Not been there before. Further inspection: not specifically water, but still liquid. Liquid in bottles that had been left on the table for a while. For a very long while. Not round enough to be wine glasses. _If not wine, then what?  
_ One section of the wood is darker than the others. Block shape. Something heavy had sat there, blocking the light from that section of wood while the rest of the table paled. Not a laptop: that'd be too often removed. Same logic excludes a plate. What had been sitting there? What was habitually there? (John's a creature of habit.) Well, back way when, Sherlock had been using his micro-scope in that particular area-  
Micro-scope. Missing.  
Bottle stains. Misshapen. _Flasks_. _Solution containers_.  
Sherlock never cleared the set-up on the kitchen table before the police came to arrest him. John must never have either.

Curious.

 

Where's the micro-scope now? Not downstairs when Mrs. Hudson directed him to the boxes of books. She threw a comment about the quantity of books. Ignored her. What did she care? They weren't hers, and she likely had John to help when they shoved his possessions in the recesses of 221 Baker Street.  
(It was a logical thing to do, though. Not unpredictable, to do to the things of a dead man. Matter of convenience, which now is an inconvenience for him.)

Then if not in the basement, then where?

 _Dumpster - 2% chance._ John's a sentimental man. He kept the entire set-up precisely as Sherlock left it on the kitchen table for long enough that spots and stains formed. That he'd suddenly chuck it in a bin goes against John's nature. And that micro-scope cost quite a bit. John doesn't just throw away expensive things.  
Unless he had a fit, which was possible. (As evidenced by the mirror, the remains of which he found in a box. Shattered bits too. As if it can be repaired. Oh dear, sentiment is so silly.)

 _Mrs. Hudson's room - 5% chance._ She'd never allow it - all the chemicals and "science" - unless she'd broken down and put it away where she'd forget it.

 _Lab - 55% chance._ Molly could take it. But John quite shaken by his fall; likely the building of St. Barts got woven into the trauma. Molly would have had to make the trip. Molly would not have made the trip.  
 _Revised: Lab - 20% chance._

That leaves the flat itself. But where? Not sitting room, not kitchen, and most certainly not John's bedroom; he's a man who shoves away painful emotions (trauma) unless feeling them was absolutely necessary (or impossible to avoid). (Then why did he leave the set-up out for so long? Habit? Hope? A symbol of his memory of Sherlock?)

 

Symbol. Sherlock.  
Sherlock's own bedroom.

Obviously.

 

Three boxes await him. Two with everything non-perishable from the kitchen table (micro-scope included.) (Noticeable feeling of release in chest. Likely relief. Noted.) In the third are small knick-knacks. Sherlock scoffs. The sheer amount of sentiment exhibited by John in this single investigation can replace every cake his brother has ever consumed.  
(Slight exaggeration. Maybe Mary can do that.)  
(Mary.)  
(Put in trash to delete.)  
(Can't. Lack of concentration. John will be back soon. Must hurry.)  
(Will he be back? _Mary Mary Mary-_ )  
(Shut up.)

 

A crystal ashtray - _I'm seriously fighting an impulse to steal one.  
_ His skull - ( _Old friend.) I'm filling in for your skull. (Relax, you're doing fine.)_  
The Woman's old phone - _The one who beat you. (Please.) (Please.)_  
And his violin. The strings let out a dissonant twang. Wince-inducing. Strings have fallen severely out of tune.

(Feeling of settling in chest, like relief, but more slow and subtle. Contentment? Return to comfort?)  
(Feeling at home?)

(Home. Can that be quantified? Address: 221B Baker Street. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two occupants. Length of shared occupancy: one and a half years. Length of Sherlock's absence: two years, eleven months, thirteen days, six to twelve hours. Utility costs: not bad. Rent: manageable compared to average London real estate. Wait, not rented anymore: owned. By John. Who left. (Shall negotiate future terms of occupancy with Mrs. Hudson. Has no idea if a will is negated when its writer comes back from the dead.) Those are facts.)  
(They do not induce same feelings.)

(Curious.)

Sherlock should play his violin; John likes to hear him play. At least he did once. (He's changed, they both have, but where have they changed? By how much?)  
(Would that there was a hydrostatic scale for someone's personality, feelings, the things you can't put into numbers or hard fact. Then he'd know. Then there would be certainty.)  
(Uncertainty is loathsome).

Hard object in his coat pocket. Leather notebook. John's. Forgot that he had it.  
John'll be upset if he reads it.  
John didn't say a word after realizing he'd left Mary.

( _Sherlock-)  
_ ( _Yes, brother, I hear your voice and no, I'm not being vindictive._ )

(lie)

 

 

>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> You fucking fucking fucking fucking piece of fucking shit.
> 
> -
> 
> I wrote that last night. I'd had a nightmare in front of Mary again. (She's getting worried. I tell her I go to a therapist, but that doesn't stop her worrying.) Strangely enough, it gave me the irrepressible urge to write.
> 
> Yeah, I know, I see the results too. But when I went back to bed, I got a peaceful sleep. That hasn't happened for a while.
> 
> So (try to contain your shock) I think I'll try an experiment: I'm going to write to you, as frequently as I want. Maybe it'll pull out the thoughts stuck in the wedges of my brain, put them elsewhere so I don't have to have them at night.  
>  Well, here goes.
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> The kids in the clinic are screaming. Ear infections, flu, someone's not getting the doll they want.  
>  Normally it's not this bad.
> 
> Normally, it's just...  
>  It's just dull work. Ordinary.  
>  But safe, also. Little risk. I could use that right now.  
>  Good money, too.
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> Mary's very quiet when we sit together. It's unnerving.  
>  The silence wants me to fill it. But I can't. So what fills it instead are thoughts I don't want to think, memories I don't want to remember.
> 
> Where are you?
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> Perhaps the oddest part of you being dead is that I don't feel it. I know what you think about gut instinct. But I feel like I would _know_ somehow in my bones that you are dead.  
>  Instead, it just seems like you're not here, a lot. Like you're always just around the corner, on your way home from the mortuary or the Yard or a client's house from Buckingham palace in a bed sheet again.  
>  Home. Where is home? Lately, it's been where I slept the night before, which is often Mary's flat. But it doesn't feel like _home_ home.
> 
> I don't remember the last time I felt that.
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> I passed Sebastian Wilkes today. He was at lunch at an outdoor cafe with some important-looking suits. Anyway, your name got dropped somehow. They laughed you off. Serves the public right for believing in miracle-workers, said one. That's how you wind up in bull markets, inflated stocks; people swallow what's too good to be true. No one should be surprised when they fall.  
>  They barely looked to Sebastian, because he was laughing right along with him.
> 
> You want to know what he said? What Sebastian said about you? You don't want to. Well, you would want to know (you always want to know), but I don't want to tell you.
> 
> "London got the fake hero that it deserved."
> 
> I don't want to tell you because of what happened next. Well, maybe you don't care that I marched straight the fuck up to him and called him a two-faced bastard and that he could say whatever the hell he wanted about you, but never a fake. Never ever _ever_ a fake. And not when he bloody well knows better.  
>  You may not care, but I do. Someone called the police probably. I left just as the manager was about to throw me out.
> 
> Actually, you know what? I don't care. If the police got called, at least I'd be arrested for a worthy cause. Because you may be a bastard, but you're no fake.  
>  I won't ever stop defending you.
> 
> Why the hell are you dead?
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> I felt something. Just now. Mary's still asleep, thank the lord. (I can't keep disturbing her with my dreams. It's not right.)
> 
> In my head, you were struggling, panting, maybe running from something. I saw it in blurs. Then came a tug, and you were hurt. I didn't know how I knew you were hurt, I just _knew._  
>  Right now, I'm wracking my memory for when that moment happened. Nothing comes to mind.  
>  Must have made it up.
> 
> I think about you too much.
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> I'm a twat. I'm a twat of epic proportions. I sit here to steep in my immense twathood. John Watson, King of Twats.  
>  Mary and I were in bed just now. I had my head in her breasts and her nails were digging into my head and-

A blast of air hits his face as he claps the book closed, throws it beside him on the bed.  
The room is warm, very warm. Sweltering. He should talk to Mrs. Hudson. Yell at her. Yell at anyone. Scream. Throw things.

 _(No, Sherlock.)_  
How Freudian of him that his mother's voice comes up whenever he's on the verge of a rage.  
No, Freud talks of love between mother and son.  
 _(Restraint, Sherlock. Master yourself. Do not let petty things like emotions blind you. Look at your brother, Sherlock. Look to his example.)_  
 _(why can't you be more like your brother?)_

Sherlock can master himself. (Why does he get these feelings of rage when reading about John's sex life-?) No, doesn't matter. Sherlock will master himself. (John has slept with other women before. Never bothered Sherlock before. (Did it?) Of course not.)  
 _(Well...)_  
(Pretending to forget their names. Casually reminding each one that she was not the first (or last) of John's string of lovers. (Still: a valid observation. John burned through women like Sherlock once burned through cigarettes.) Never talking to John before or after each date. Why did he do this?)

(No reasonable explanation. And thus no reasonable explanation why Sherlock should not continue reading.)  
(John's privacy is long forgotten.)

 

 

> -and it was going well and fine when suddenly she stopped.  
>  I asked her what's wrong.  
>  She said I was going a bit soft,  
>  At first I thought she meant the pace or perhaps I wasn't rutting into her hard enough, but then I looked down and saw.  
>  Oh, was all I could bring myself to say.
> 
> I basically fled the bedroom. She didn't stop me. Maybe another night, we silently agree. For now I'm too embarrassed, too discouraged to try again.  
>  Or so she thinks. And so I wish I think.
> 
> Right before I lost my hardness, Mary had thrown her head back and let out a debauched sigh. Normally her moans drive me crazy. But normally they don't sound exactly like someone's old ringtone.  
>  Suddenly, images flooded in my head: of you and Irene, things that happened between you two and things that, you know, might have, if. If. (Thank God you're dead and never going to read this).  
>  At one point, Mary craned her neck and looked at me, looking like how Irene might look at you and you might look at her if you two were.  
>  You. You two.  
>  If.
> 
> That was when I lost it.
> 
> You know what? Forget this entry. It's stupid, so immensely stupid. It has nothing to do with you and like hell it's going to keep you out of my nightmares tonight.
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> I was right.  
>  And I am a twat.

No thoughts, no words in Sherlock's brain. _What does this mean?_ his brain screams.  
No clue. Absolutely no clue.

Uncertainty is frightening.

Must read on.

 

 

> ~ SH-
> 
> Sometimes it does hurt to write in here, you know. Sometimes I get nightmares despite it.  
>  I write anyway. I can't stop.
> 
> Mary wants to read it. I won't let her. It's personal, immensely private. I'm afraid to let her see.  
>  She thinks I hide things.
> 
> I didn't tell her that I'm afraid to see it myself.
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> ~~-I think I'm going to marry-~~  
>  No, I don't want to talk about that with you. We've never talked about that. There are plenty of other things to talk about with you.
> 
> Maybe that's why I can't stand songs anymore. Mary complains bitterly, but I just can't do it. Because no matter what, it always comes to sex and love. Like that's the only thing that matters.  
>  Of course, I can't tell my girlfriend I think that.
> 
> But aren't there other things they can talk about? Can't they talk about books? Can't they talk about Chinese food? How about stars? Shoes? Drugs? Organ lividity?
> 
> Perhaps there's a reason I'm a doctor and not David Bowie  
>  (You don't even know who that is, do you.)
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> ~~-I admitted it to Mrs. Hudson today. I didn't mean to. It slipped out. I couldn't take it back.~~   
>  ~~I admitted to her that I l-~~
> 
> No. Not to you. Right. We don't talk about that. No.  
>  We're not like that.
> 
>  
> 
> ~ SH-
> 
> Then again, if I can't tell you, I can't tell anyone.
> 
> No, I still can't. It physically hurts. This experiment is supposed to stop the hurting.
> 
>  
> 
> ~
> 
> God, you've been gone for a while.
> 
> ~

Sherlock strides out the door into John's bedroom (Clean. Tidy. Untouched. Empty.) and puts the leather book on the nightstand. No, he dropped it by the door. If he finds it here, he'll know.  
(He can't know. Not ever.)  
Fine, by the door then. But on the way out, Sherlock's foot hits something. It's light, skids a meter at the impact. A box, barely shut. Few contents; one, in fact, Sherlock guesses. (John was in quite a hurry to leave if he left his old things behind)-

Pistol. SIG Sauer P226 Rail. The technical details poke their way through Sherlock's mind, but can't break through the single overarching, overwhelming thought.  
 _I put a gun in my mouth, Sherlock_.  
 _A gun._

It's good to sit on the bed for a little while.  
Sherlock can't move anyway.

 

Life without John. Life without John made bearable because John was still alive.  
 _I had to die in order to save you!  
I fucking died anyway_!

 

Sherlock meant every word of his promise. He meant it to a frightening degree.  
 _Never again_.  
( _You left me.)_  
 _Never again._  
 _(You made me watch.)_  
 _Never ever ever again, I swear._

"Forgive me, John."  
The words are spoken aloud, and disseminate through the air. Did not mean to say them aloud.  
Does not care.  
"Forgive me," he mumbles into his hands, his back folding over his knees. "I owe you a thousand apologies."

(Apology without wanting something in return. New feeling. Noted.)  
(Not entirely true. Wants John. Wants John to stay forever.)  
(Not possible; John and Mary, John and Mary, John and Mary…)  
 _(Stop.)_

Every action has consequences. Every door opened means another door closed.  
This is the price that Sherlock must pay.

(Worth it. John is alive.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoopsies, spontaneous brainwave accidentally leads to unprecedented extra chapter.  
> Sorry ~~not sorry~~
> 
> Again, feedback appreciated. Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!


	5. Between (Pt. II)

 

 _Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk_. The seams in the pavement send the cab lurching, send John’s mind lurching. It’s good. It takes his mind off the waves of thoughts that are stirring bile in the back of his throat.

_Mary, leaning over in her chair, her eyes widening when John slips down onto his knee. Those brown eyes shining brighter and brighter as he holds her hand._

_Those brown eyes blinking, not understanding as he hurtles out of the restaurant. Those brown eyes watching the small velvet box fall to her feet._

_Everyone in the restaurant watching her, staring at her._

_She does not understand. All she sees is John not there._

John pulls his hands over his face, drawing in a long, shaky breath. He keeps his hands there. No doubt the drivers in the opposite lane will otherwise do horrified double-takes if they catch his face. No doubt everyone knows who he is, what he’s done.

 _John, this is not love.  
  
_ Love. Love has four letters. So does Mary, and words like 'good' and 'nice'.  
 _Like 'dull'.  
_ Dull has one thing going for it though: dependability, consistency. Mary will love him in the morning as much as she will love him in the evening. He will leave and come home and there she’ll be, as expected.  
 _Even if I shatter her heart?_  
His mind has no reply. It comes out as a thin white static.

Hyde Park passes by the cab window. Trees, benches, streetlamps, all masked in shadows, but the outlines are still familiar. Once upon a time, John called out a creep hitting on a woman in a bar. Once upon another time, the woman and he crossed paths again; she paid for his gyro and then he ran away. Once upon a third time, they found each other again by accident and it transformed into a coffee date. Third time’s the charm. Someone might call it fated to be.

Mary’s aunt did, at that Christmas party so long ago. Later that night came a toast: _to family, new and old, born in or brought in. May it be our net when we fall, and our backbone when we rise. May we always be there for each other. Always.  
_ The ‘hear-hears’ rose and the glasses clinked like glistening bells, but not enough to drown out the word ‘fall’ echoing around John’s head. His success that night was resisting the urge to flee to the head. Mary wanted him there, needed him there, so he was there, would be there. It was the right thing to do.

Every step up to her flat is an accusation. Every floorboard squeak makes him sweat with shame. When he reaches her door, there is no sound, no swell in the orchestra, no streetlight to tell him hold, hold, hold, now go. A part of him urges him to run. Another part of him - the soldier buried in guilt and steeped in duty - whispers that he must.  
It is the right thing to do.

He takes a long, deep breath and reaches out a hand.

 _Knock.  
   Knock.  
_ _Knock._

No answer.

As he puts his cell up to his hear, a muffled ringtone filters through the door, only to be abruptly cut-off. Then follows a faint sniffle.

Iron fills his chest.

“Mary...” He closes his eyes tight. “I'm so so sorry about tonight, that was…” His mouth clamps shut and he shakes his head. The pain he has caused her cannot be put into words.  
 _No, John, you owe her. You should have done this years ago. You owe her your words._

“I…haven’t been fully honest with you." He feels like he's snipping undoing stitches inside him. Whether the wounds have healed or will reopen, God only knows.

“A few years ago, I...I had this flatmate. He...H-He was my best friend.” Best friend. ‘Best friend’ understated every about John and Sherlock’s relationship, put a plastic label on something so strange and dark and deep as though it could be reduced to ordinary terms- “H-He died a few months before you and I met. Threw himself off of St. Barts.”

John swallows and the sound is thunderous in the empty hallway.

“You know, you once asked me why I don’t tell you things. Why I didn’t tell you about Afghanistan. Why I didn’t tell you about the other bedroom in 221B.” His head casts a dark shadow on the floorboards outside her door, dark enough that he can barely make out his shoes. “Why I don’t talk about my sister, the fights at home when she got caught chasing skirts, and then when she became a drinker. Why I don’t talk about my mum losing her mind after my dad died.”

The hallway’s silence slips into his heart and squeezes it in a vice-like grip. The air rushes out of his lungs. Everything is cold and numb and heavy, like a fog made of lead, and John is always on the verge of suffocation. How John is still standing, it’s hard to say.

It doesn’t matter. John is still standing.

“Those things,” he continues in a hoarse voice, “they’re mine to bear. Therapists always tell me to share, share my thoughts, share the burden. But they’re my burdens. And if I were to force them on you” - _you, so bright, so nice, so good_ \- “I never would’ve forgiven myself.

“Mary," he says through gritted teeth. "I’ve been rotten to you. Christ, the hell I put you through tonight…” _Mary’s face as John rushes away from her, leaving her abandoned, leaving her alone._ John presses his fist to his mouth, feeling her pain as his own. “God, not just tonight; I’ve been rotten to you all along. When you were honest, I was hiding. When you were kind, I took advantage of it. When you asked things of me, I gave them half-heartedly. You put your all into us, and I never gave much more than a half-arsed effort.”

Outside a train rumbles by. A feeble tremble runs through the building. It barely makes a sound, barely makes a difference.

_What am I doing?_

“But, I suppose” - he licks his lips - “why I came here tonight, after every bloody terrible thing I’ve done to you, it’s, erm. I guess I want you to know that I meant everything I said. Tonight, at the restaurant.” He breaks off for a breath. His voice grows croaky. “I fucked up huge, I know, and it may not deserve forgiveness. But I do, I _really do_ want to marry you.”

_-Mary by his side, smiling at him like he’s the best man she’s ever known-_

_But John..._

_-Mary by his side, asleep, the glow of headlights from outside casting sparkles on her golden hair-_

_John, that is not…_

_-Mary, teary-eyed in her uncle’s cabin, “It makes wonder what else you haven’t told me”-_

_John-_ No, it’s not. Not yet.  
But maybe someday - someday - John will learn to love her.  
For Mary is the sun, reliable and constant, and Sherlock is the wild, oncoming storm.  
And maybe John has been battered enough.

After a long while, the hallway remains damningly silent, the doors looming over like stony magistrates. No stirring comes from behind the door. John lets his breath rush out his nose. “So I guess, erm,” he mutters, “just let me know.”

He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and makes for the stairs. The floorboard creak his every damned step. _I deserve it though_ , he thinks bitterly. _I deserve it._

 

Suddenly, there’s a tiny creak over his shoulder. He spins around. The flat door is slightly ajar. It opens further and further until John can see inside and the sight makes his heart twist.

Mary’s hair is undone falls on her shoulders in unkempt knots. Her dress has gathered at her thighs, but she doesn’t bother to smooth it. Faint black smudges line the tops of her cheek bones. Her upper lip is shining, and her eyes are red and moist.

“Oh God, Mary-”

“You know,” she murmurs, “during that whole speech, you never once said that you love me.”

He is plunged into the Arctic Ocean. “But I-!”

“Don't,” she breathes. Her face begins to tremble. “Please. Not now.”

John swallows and bites his lip hard. “...Is it not too late for anything?”

“I think it was too late a long time ago, when they found the body of a woman dressed in pink. Yes, John, I know,” she murmurs as John’s jaw drops open. “Received an email a while ago: anonymous, simply telling me to look up ‘john watson blog detective’, that I’d find the results ‘enlightening’. I found the blog.”

Her voice drops off. She said the words so softly, but they damn him as much as an IED.

“You know, I would’ve been fine with it all, if you ever told me. Yes, you told me tonight, but after everything... I had to find out on my own. Again.” Mary looks away from John. Her words are firm yet slow, controlled. “You may have thought you loved me in some way, in some fashion, and so you said it to me and believed it. but I always had doubts. I thought it was just that you weren’t as ready to open yourself to me as I was to you. But now I know there’s more. Him,” she whispers shakily, showing the cracks in her self-control. “You belong to him.”

John crumbles inside. “No, no, it's not like that-”

“I knew a man once.” She wipes a hand over her shining lip. “Straight as a rod. He loved women and he worshipped his wife. After she died, however, he met someone else. That someone else happened to be a man.” Mary’s eyes flicker to John for a moment. They quiver like dew drops on a spider web. “That man was my father. They are now a couple happily retired to Wales."

 

For a long while, John does not even hear his own breathing. Is he breathing? Is he dreaming? No, this is all too raw and cutting to be a dream. Mary unkempt and misty-eyed is not something he could think up in his darkest nightmares.

“I had a rough time at first,” she continues, firm and slow. “My entire childhood was suddenly a lie, and everything I knew about love became lies too. But now I realize that that wasn’t it at all. My father did love my mother in her life; he still thinks of her, even though now he loves his husband. Love is love. Exceptions happen.”

John’s lungs find air, but language is still a faraway stranger.

“I'm not mad about my father anymore, or about you, John. Really.” Her lips attempt a smile, but it is shaky. “Well, I was; you hurt me, after all. But how can I be angry over what neither of us can control?” Mary grimaces and again her eyes flicker to John for a split second. “I wish you the very best.” And at that, the door begins to shut.

Suddenly, the words leap out: “Hang on, Mary-”

The door stops but Mary does not look at him. “I'd rather you not touch me.”

“Right…” His hand falls slowly to his side. They stand in silence for a long, heavy minute.

“Mary,” murmurs John at the ground. “Regardless of everything that I did, everything that happened, I think you are by far the most spectacular woman I've ever known.”

She winces. “Please, you don't-”

“No, I do,” he urges, almost pleading. “I don’t mean to hurt you more; honest, I never meant to hurt you. Because you are a truly fantastic person. And you deserve someone as spectacular as you. Someone who will love you gloriously.” He licks his lips. “Someone fifty times better than me.”

Three breaths pass, then he hears her whisper. “I'd hope so.”  
A bird’s trill falls out of her lips. He lets out a pained laugh with her.

Suddenly, it hits him: this moment is the most honest they’ve ever been with each other. In this moment, they had made plain and clear the walls between them. In this moment, John has made himself the most naked to Mary he’s ever been; in the moment of their undoing.

Mary lifts a single finger and then ducks into her flat. After a minute, she reemerges, holding in her hands a small, blue velvet box. “This is yours.”

John swallows one more pang of guilt. “Oh, um, wow.” If there were ever a single moment to capture the sins of John, a red-eyed, knotted-hair Mary holding out an engagement ring - _his_ engagement ring  _to her_ - from her apartment door does just fine. “Jus-just keep it." His neck prickles hot beneath his collar. “You could pawn it or something-”

“Thanks, but no thanks if you're just giving me a cash consolation prize.”

A jolt runs up his spine. “Oh fuck, shit, God…” He rubs his weathered hands over his face. “I have been a horrific person this evening.”

Mary looks at him with thin lips. “It wasn't one of your better nights, no.”

“And you're not angry?”

She shrugs. “How can I be? It’s out of your hands.”

And like that, everything becomes clear. The ties snap and John feels lighter. The woman before him is no longer Mary, the fiancee he wronged, the sun he orbited to keep himself righted, the woman he commanded himself to love. The woman is now Miss Mary Morstan, a teacher, a good and gentle woman, a woman whose name has a familiar ring to it and nothing more.

“How are you even possible, Mary,” breathes John.

She gives him a weak smile. “He's yours. And you’re his.”

He lets out a nervous laugh and licks his lips. “No, erm, We’re not like that, we’re just-”

“John.” She looks at him like a schoolteacher looks at a disobedient tot. “I've never seen Sherlock before tonight. I’ve not even said a word to him. And yet I can still tell you're an idiot.”

 

* * *

 

He’s walked halfway back to Baker Street when a purring engine pulls alongside him. There is no need to even turn around.

“Mycroft,” he says with tight lips as the car door opens and shuts.

“Come along, Doctor Watson,” drawls the familiar haughty voice. “You’ll catch a cold.” The elder Holmes, dressed in an elegant wool coat, bears his patented sneer.

John returns the sharp look. “Old wives’ tales, Mycroft.”

“Perhaps. I suppose that sometimes the past mingles with the present. The question is”- Mycroft begins to take slow, deliberate steps towards John - “how does it fit, if it fits at all?”

“No, the real question is how it’s any of your bloody business.” John turns his collar up against a particularly brisk breeze.

“My brother lives, John, and I want to keep him that way.”

“Then keep him away from tall ledges.”

“Do I look to be in a gaming mood, Doctor Watson?”

John cannot tell; his dig at Mycroft has spun around and sunk its teeth into John’s heart and now he grapples with the pain.

“Get in the car.”

He’s in too much agony to resist.

 

* * *

 

“You knew?”

Mycroft look pointedly away. His body language is clear: _I will not answer anything said in that tone of voice_.  
John stares daggers at him anyway. He has run out of fucks to give when it comes to the elder Holmes.

“If you mean to ask if Sherlock told me of his little stunt beforehand, then no.” The tone is quite curt, even for Mycroft. “I found out a year and a half ago. We’ve been silently working alongside one another ever since.”

“Thought you two are arch-enemies.”

“In his mind, yes, but Sherlock needs to grow up. And so do you, John.”

John’s eybrows snap up. “Sorry, what?”

“What are you doing?”

“What am I-? The bloody hell, I’m getting kidnapped-”

“With my brother, John. It’s more than clear that you and Mary are now going your separate ways, but I wonder if it’s for reasons more than you ran out on her at a restaurant.”

“How did you-” John huffs. Of course, he’s the government and he’s an absolute prick. “What are you on about? And be direct for once in your life.”

Mycroft’s nose twitches in irritation. John is suddenly aware of Anthea in the front passenger seat, her head bent down over her phone undoubtedly. Funny how he just noticed her; how many times in the past had she been the first one to catch his eye...

“Sherlock did what he did because he thought it was necessary,” says Mycroft abruptly. “And he will most likely continue to do what he thinks is necessary in the future, whether you agree with it or not. Do you understand?”

The lights of shops have almost gone out at this hour of night. All that remains are the yellow street lamps, the hazy glow of headlamps, and the dark-coated faceless figures walking home in their light.

“He is loyal only to himself, to his own preservation and desires. Others are afterthoughts. His only ‘friends’ are those who look after him, and who he keeps at maybe half an arm’s reach. Those like you and I, John.”

John cannot hide his wince. He scowls inwardly.

“We are there for him,” Mycroft drawls on. “We keep a check on his most destructive habits, to abort his most dangerous schemes. We keep him grounded, from flying too close to the sun. But what does he do for us?”

The air is too close, too warm. It presses against John from every side.

“What does Sherlock need from us? So long as he has his mind, his work, what more does he need than an assistant?” Mycroft purposefully bites that words. John ignores how it grinds in his gut.

“You’re saying he’s better off without friends?”

“He got along before you.”

“But how well?” growls John, fixing his eyes to the base of seat in front of him.

Mycroft gives nothing away, but the answer rings out anyway. The answer was obvious from the moment Sherlock glared into John’s eyes as Lestrade began his drugs bust. “He was alive when you met him, was he not?” murmurs Mycroft, stroking his chin.

“Alive does not mean living.”

“And living for the sake of another puts that quite in perspective when that other is gone. I’m sure you of all people can attest to that.”

If the door were to open at this speed, John would tumble out at an equal speed onto the pavement. His injuries would be bad enough if he hits nothing else, and nothing else hits him. If he were to get out when the car has stopped at a light, however-

 _Click._ The locks snap into place.

“I’d rather not have you put your life into danger again under my watch,” drawls Mycroft. “Sherlock would be most displeased with me.”

John snarls, “Thought you said he didn’t care about me.”

“No, Doctor Watson, quite the opposite. And I find that infinitely more disturbing.”

John looks at him blankly. Mycroft has deliberately screwed his gaze out the window, his face a textbook study of control. John opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Sherlock. Caring for him. Sherlock. Caring.

“...Sherlock and I are just friends.” The words fall out automatically. They sound just as wooden and hollow as they feel.

“Be that as it may, John,” replies Mycroft, not shifting his gaze, “there is nothing ‘just’ about your relationship.”

And silence falls between the two men.

Perhaps John forgot to pay attention. But somehow, before he realizes it, the car begins to slow. It stops along a dark side street, about three blocks from Baker. The locks unclick. No one - neither the driver nor Anthea nor Mycroft - makes a move towards John as if to say goodbye.

“...No, there isn’t.”

The elder Holmes turns his head. John’s hand hold the car door, but he has paused in his exit. Mycroft raises a single, questioning eyebrow.

“You’re right, Mycroft.” John smirks. “There is nothing ‘just’ about us.” Out of the blue, a laugh escapes him. The reproachful look Mycroft throws at him only deepen his laughter. “Rather extraordinary, actually. No one would have ever expected it.”

“Expected what?”

“Ta, Mycroft.”

The car door opens. John is met with a blast of fresh air. It burns like fire in his lungs. It burns through his entire chest.

John grins.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JOHN GOT HIS SHIT TOGETHER YAY JOHN THREE CHEERS FOR JOHN.
> 
> One more chapter to go. Thank you everyone for your support of this story! You have no idea (or you do if you're a writer yourself) how much it means to me :D  
> EDIT (11.30.2013): if you accidentally got notified that this story was updated, I apologize. I fixed some language and mechanics issues just now. Sorry for any false hope :(


	6. Obviously

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Obviously' is about to become the best word in the dictionary, next to 'always'.

The door to 221 Baker Street clicks shut behind him. John wipes his shoes on the doormat and lets out a shaky breath in the well-heated air. His neck prickles from the sudden temperature change, no doubt; not for any other reason at all.

Something tingles in his stomach. Is John nervous? What for? Is it because the light was off in the window of the flat above? Is it because he hears no footsteps creak above his head? Is it because this evening has been so surreal that it seems half like a dream (or a fantasy) right now?

Then John hears it: a low, strange moan. It sounds like the neighbor’s cat at first, but then the pitch rises and becomes a wailing song. _No, that’s no cat_ , is all the thought that John can muster.  
Three years since he last heard that sound. Three years it took to slip from his memory. And in the fragile beauty of the music, those three years do not disappear, but further sharpen in John’s mind, until he winces with every bowstroke he hears from behind the door.

The door opens. The music stops. John peeks open his eyes that he apparently had closed.

The blinds are drawn and the sitting room lights are off. Only the kitchen’s fluorescent light remains alive and flickering. It casts a blue glow on the back of a black, well-tailored suit that stands frozen by the window, grasping a violin and bow in pale, mannequin-like hands.

“Well?” asks the mannequin at the blinds.

John shuts the door with surprisingly steady hands. “She-”

“Was furious, rejected your proposal, dumped you and threw you out onto the street.”

“No, actually.”

The pale man whirls around his black eyebrows aloft. “Oh?”

“I mean, we broke up yes,” John mumblingly admits. “But she's not angry.”

A snort escapes the mannequin. “Oh John, what a fool you are.”

John hangs up his coat. “I don't think so. She…” He licks his lips and looks down. “She's an angel.”

“Hmm.” The pale man’s eyes flicker over the length of his bow.

“Possibly the most perfect woman I ever met-”

“When do you plan on pawning the ring?”

“What?” John frowns, thinking. “...no, erm, well, I’m not sure if I want to keep it for, you know, a later opportunity…” He plops down in his armchair sheepishly.

“Of course.” The pale man sighs. “Sentiment. Dull.” His black curls flick up with a theatrical head toss.

John says nothing, rubbing his temples as he sits. The man before him breaks into a devilish jig. The bow scratches against the strings and the notes hardly sound elegant. Of course: Sherlock has been apart from his violin for three years.

Sherlock has been dead for three years.

 _Dead. Sherlock. Three years_. What is a year anymore? What is dead anymore? (For dead is clearly not the same as dead). John does not know. John can only go on. John must go on.

“So what's next?”

Sherlock pauses his dance for a split second to flick a gaze at the seated man. He seems as surprised as John himself. “We wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For the Chief Superintendent to reinstate Lestrade as a detective-inspector.”

“Hold on, what?” Though that explains why Lestrade’s name has been notably absent in the papers lately. “What's going to convince him?” John asks quietly.

“A persuasive letter,” drawls Sherlock, casually waving his bow while avoiding John’s gaze. “It predicts a most telling exposure of some quite unprofessional behavior in his department - gambling addictions, mishandling of cases, affairs between officers and their married coworkers - if he fails to call back Gregory Lestrade from indefinite leave. Should take no longer than a week, I presume.”

A chuckle escapes John. It hurts at first, like it’s loosening something hard in his chest. “I don't know what else I expected.”

Sherlock throws him a strange look, and shrugs. He flings his bow on the violin a few more scratchy times before speaking again: “Alas, in the meantime…”

John looks up at him. “Mhm?”

The consulting detective strides to the window, coaxing an unnaturally happy ditty from his violin. The musician notices it himself, for he stops and scowls at his violin. “I suppose I’ll need to talk to Mrs. Hudson regarding the flat and its proper ownership. There’s a want for legal precedents in English law regarding my...peculiar circumstances.”

“Ah,” says John. “Magistrates don’t tend to deal with the dead arisen.”

“Dull beyond belief.” groans Sherlock. “It’ll involve mounds of paperwork.”

“Mm.”

“Hours of dealing with clerks, lawyers, insipid bureaucrats.”

“Without a doubt.”

“The process will be so _achingly_ tedious”

“I’d imagine.”

As the flat falls silent, John doesn’t even have to look up to know that two ice blue eyes are boring through his skull. 

“No.”

Sherlock makes a noise of protest. “But John-”

“You died. I’m not doing jackshit for you.”

“Only pretended to die.”

“Felt real enough.”

Sherlock visibly winces. ”I’m sorry,” he whispers after a moment.

John grimaces. As hard as it was to have his dead… _best friend?_... not actually dead, Sherlock actually apologizing made him feel like a torturer.  
But damn it all, it’s deserved.  
“Good,” says John, all of a sudden craving a cup of tea. “This’ll be your first step in making amends.”

Sherlock says nothing. Water rumbles through the wall into the faucet as he fills the kettle. The stove turns on with a groan. John stands with both hands gripping the counter, watching the kettle for no other reason than that it is something (else) to watch. A kettle can be depended on. A kettle won’t throw itself off a rooftop.  
A kettle won’t break his heart.

“For how long?”

“Hmm?” John pulls down the teapot and a mug from the cabinet above, checking for cobwebs first.

“For how long must I-” The man pauses. John imagines him quirking those pale, pink lips, but then stops himself. “How long will it take to make amends?”

The soft voice pangs him. “I dunno,” John mumbles at the counter.

A hiss interrupts his thoughts. John prepares the tea leaves - paying no mind to the box’s expiration date - and pour the steaming water gently into the pot to steep. He does not ask Sherlock if he wants a cup. Sherlock does not request one.

“You read my pocketbook,” says John calmly when the tea is finally ready.

Sherlock’s jaw twitches. “I-”

“Don’t.” John puffs a controlled breath over the tea’s surface. He fixes his eyes on his cuppa. “I knew as soon as I saw in by the coat rack. You’d never see something of mine and just leave it there.”

Sherlock says nothing at first. Then, carefully he places his violin in its case - how he sees it in the dark is a miracle - and stands as slowly as a watched cat, facing the the wall behind….their?... the couch. “Are you upset?” It comes out a whisper.

John ponders this for a moment. “A bit."

Sherlock falls silent once more

“Sherlock,” sighs John, setting his cup on the table with a loud clap. “I need you to talk to me. Not because I’ve missed your voice for three years” - _not entirely_ \- “but because you often forget that I don’t think like you and don’t read your mind.”

“Nor I, you,” says Sherlock coolly, his pale eyes still fixed on the bullet-ridden wall.

“Yes- well." John clears his throat. “You do a damn better job of reading me.”

“Not always.”

The soldier furrows his brow. “How’d you mean?”

A cracking sound; the consulting detective stands as stiff as ice in the center of the shadowy room, curling and uncurling his fists. The blue kitchen light makes his skin almost translucent. John’s nerves bristle at the realization that Sherlock looks uncannily like a ghost.

“Feelings are...not my area,” begins the pale man slowly. “Physical signs are easy to read: muscle movements, bodily functions, biochemical processes. Studiable, understandable. But deeper than that? _Pah!_ ” He fires out the word like a gunshot. John’s heart skips a beat. “No numbers, no equations; arbitrary rules and laws without logic or reason. It makes messes in my brain! A second language that I never know I was missing until I noticed that everyone else spoke it, and spoke it fluently And yet the ability to feel drives so much in humanity, drives a man to do so many things. But why? _Why_?” growls Sherlock, throwing his hands up in frustration.

John’s mouth forms a ‘o’. “...You don’t understand it,” he breathes in sudden understanding.

“No!” The man’s voice is savage. “I can _not_!” He turns towards John with wild eyes.  
“So on occasion,” growls Sherlock through gritted teeth, “I may fail to understand how you feel. I may not see that my words have hurt you. I may, out of habit, prepare to act in one way in expectation of a certain reaction, and only realize my mistake when you give a wildly different reaction altogether. That does not mean I don’t care when you are hurt. It simply means that sometimes I...just do not _see it_.”

John blinks, wrapping his hands around the porcelain teacup. He tries his best to take this all in. “You’re remarkably willing to be candid right now,” he says with a nervous smile.

Sherlock grips the back of one of the kitchen chairs as though without it, he’d keel over. “I suppose I am,” he mumbles. “There’s an expression out there: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.”

“Never expected that to come out of your mouth,” remarks John in all sincerity.

“Mm,” hums the pale man. “Is it feelings, then, that make us so unpredictable? What feelings though? And to what degree? Why? Why, why, why- _ar_ _gh!_ ” Sherlock suddenly slams the chair into the kitchen table so hard it knocks over John’s teacup. “Such a _damned_ mess!”

John leaps up in alarm. Sherlock only swears when something truly upset him, when he has lost control of his emotions. And an out-of control Sherlock never brings anything good. “Alright, alright…” John just refrains from reaching out a comforting hand. “Alright, redirect: erm, why did you say before you cannot always read me?”

“You, John, are ordinary,” comes a growl from beneath the mop of glossy locks. “Or at least that is what you should be. On the surface, you are readable, predictable, and undeniably dull. But it’s deceptive, even to me sometimes, tricking me into old habits. Beneath the dull exterior, somehow hidden in plain sight, there is some...force about you that just…I cannot...” A deep throaty grumble from the man shakes John to his core. “You can do things I never expect, say things that I could never dream of. But why, why you say them do them...I...I...”

“The language barrier,” says John, holding back his gasp.

“ _Yes!_ ” Sherlock leaps up and grabs John by both his arms like a wild-man. John is beyond bewildered by now. “I want to understand you, John,” snarls a once-composed man named Sherlock Holmes. “Why you take showers at the same time every day. Why you sugar the truth with your patients but cut the crap with me. Why you pull a teacup out before you put on the kettle when it’d be more efficient to do the latter first. Why you go through woman after woman, but never so much as look at…” Sherlock turns away with a wince. “Why you embrace me when we both know you’d rather knock me over. Why…” The wildness fades. His voice drops into a mumble. “What drives everything that is so...John about you. Why you continue to be my friend, forever faithful and loyal even though there is no logical or rational reason for you to be. I want, I want so desperately to understand _that_.”

And with that, the consulting detective utterly wilts before John’s eyes.

“...and the pocketbook was my insides,” breathes John, now understanding. “Put plainly, in terms you can understand.”

“Yes.”  
Sherlock still clutches John’s shoulders, using him as support, as a pillar. It is all clear now; Sherlock is the oncoming storm, the wild sea, and John is his lighthouse. John is Sherlock’s constant in a world of chaos.

The soldier takes a deep though trembling breath. “What did it say, then...in your understanding?”

Sherlock’s head remains lolling. “I do not wish to assume.”

John snorts inappropriately. “You always assume. And quite correctly, too.”

“Not always,” grumbles the broken man before him. “Every once in a while, I guess.”

John opens his mouth, but then grins viciously.

“Oh, shut up,” spits the consulting detective.

John keeps smiling though. “Alright, alright...so...erm.” He rubs his thumb over his lip, but Sherlock still will not release his arms. John no longer expects him to. “What are your, erm, conjectures, then?”

Sherlock is silent.

“Do you not have _any?_ ” sputters John.

Sherlock remains silent.

“Or can you just not say them?”

A rush of breath hits John's chest, causing things to curl strangely inside. “...Can you say them?” asks Sherlock in a broken whisper. “Please?”

John almost gawks. His throat goes utterly dry and his heart begins to pound - _please don’t let Sherlock feel it_ \- and a million words rush through his head and they all slip past his mind’s fingers.

 _Shit_.  

  
What’s there to say? What can he say to the pale, buckled-over man gripping his arms like he was a crutch; to the man who once carried John along and who now needs John to carry him in turn, after everything (Sherlock was right) that he’d done to John? What’s there to say to the man turned his life inside-out, upside-down, and right-side-up again, sort of? What’s there to say to the man who sets his heart on fire?

_Who sets my heart on fire._

_...Oh._

_Oh._

_Oh, my God._

The greater surprise is that the realization doesn’t surprise him. Because John realizes, he’s known this for a while. Because it happened so long ago.

_Mary was right: I am an utter pillock._

“…I tried to deny it,” John mumbles at the ceiling. “I tried so hard for the longest time. I went through girlfriend after girlfriend, treated them like safety nets, telling myself that that was what I wanted. Mary proved to be remarkably sturdy, tolerant of me.”  
He gulps. “But the pool was when it happened. Well, _‘it’_ didn’t happen overnight; it grew in me, little by little taking root. But I didn’t understand how much it had grown until that night, when I was all fastened up, waiting for you, and you came, and the look in your eyes...That was when I realized it, I guess.”

Sherlock lifts his head. His eyes are so clear and blue, John wants to swim in them. “Realized...what, precisely?” whispers the suddenly young consulting detective.

John swallows. He is a soldier, or once was. No he still is, and a soldier is courageous. A soldier is not fearless, but acts in spite of his fear. John is a soldier. John will be courageous.   
  
 _Here it goes_. 

 

“...That it’s stupid for me to keep this ring. ‘Cos there will never be another...opportunity." He closes his eyes and takes the plunge. "I don’t need another. 'Cos I’ve found mine.”

The grip on his shoulders is released. John opens his eyes. Sherlock has stepped back, looking at him with awe and bewilderment.

“We...fit together, Sherlock,” says John a bit more firmly, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Yes,” breathes Sherlock after a pause. “Yes, obviously.”

 

 

Silence rushes into the flat. The wind howls cold, beating against the window panes, but John barely notices. His eyes are fixed on the icy eyes before him. Those icy eyes that make him feel the warmest he’s ever felt in his life.

Then Sherlock breaks eye contact and strides away. “Please refrain from rushing to embrace me or bursting into tears, if you please.”

John rolls his eyes, but has to grip the counter in case he floats away. “You're a prick.”

“Yet you came back.”

“So did you."

His...Sherlock smirks at him before reopening his case and retaking up his violin. He sinks into his armchair for a moment though, letting his head loll back, his gangly legs stretch out, and his eyelids hover at a soft gaze. With long, dexterous fingers, the impossible man strokes the strings blindly. His lips do not curl, but they do not have to to show his contentment. John knows what contentment looks like in a creature like Sherlock Holmes, and here it is, laid out before his lucky eyes.

“I’ll never fully forgive you though until you uphold that promise,” he says all of a sudden.

Sherlock’s eyes remain half-shut, but his fingers stop plucking. “What promise?”

“For the love of God, you swore it an hour ago!”

“Right,” drawls Sherlock lazily. “I promised to never do that to you ever again.” Then the consulting detective snaps his head up, his pale features puckered into a frown. “But ever again. Fulfilling that promise is impossible, John. It’ll take…”

“Forever, yeah,” John finishes in as much of a casual tone as he can manage.

Sherlock mouths the word, testing it on his angel pink lips. _Forever._ His head cocks to one side and a melodic twang bursts forth from the violin. John wants to leap up and dance.

Instead: “You can stop being a self-pitying bastard after a year or so.”

“A year!” cries Sherlock in indignation.

“Yes, a year!” John looks at him furiously. “One year in exchange for three! How very generous of me!”

Sherlock blinks and returns to his calmness, leaning back in his armchair with a strange expression. “I’m sorry.”

A pang again in John's chest. “You know, I may never get used to you saying sorry.”

Sherlock places his bow in the string testingly. “Seems like you’ll have a while to.”  _We have forever._

John can no longer hide his grin. “So, erm, what happens next?”

“...As I said before, not really my area.”

“Oh that, no.” John waves his hand in dismissal. “We’ll...we’ll work that out later.” _We have forever._ “After the week’s end: Then what?”

“Ah.” The consulting detective suddenly leaps from his chair and rushes to the window, peering through the blinds. “We begin the hunt,” he says low, his voice vibrating with excitement.

“The last operative?”

He is met with a devilish smile, and the macabre jib for earlier. John's heart burns like a soaring rocket. “Colonel Sebastian Moran.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANNNND WE'RE NOT DONE YET.
> 
> The itty bitty (but important) epilogue is coming next, and then we'll have Series 3 out and find out what _actually_ happened! :D  
>  Thank you all for sticking with this story! Seriously, it's meant the world to me and you helped me keep going when the going got tough. Love you! *author kisses everywhere*
> 
> ALSO: shoutout to the best Sherlock fanmix in the history of ever, ironchill's Something Lonely in the Bone: http://8tracks.com/ironchill/something-lonely-in-the-bone   
> Seriously, it's perfect. I had my mom listen to it (all of it) and she 100% agreed. And when something's Mama-Sassafrass-approved, it's clearly the shit.


	7. Someday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy endings don't just happen. You gotta work for them.

* * *

_“...Police arrived on the scene just last night to what looks to be another-”_

“Morning,” grumbles John as he shuffles into the kitchen.

Sherlock is sitting upside down in his armchair, his back on its seat, his legs dangling over its back, his hands clasped in Thinking Pose.

It’d be a miracle if Sherlock responds at all. He doesn’t. John puts on the kettle.

A sudden ‘don’t’ pops out of the pale, upside-down man’s lips.

“Don’t what?”

“Open the shades.

There’s no point in asking how he figured that out literally with his eyes closed.

“I listened to your footsteps,” drawls the infuriating detective. His white shirt shows vague rumples. “You came down here and saw me in the dark-”

“Well it is bloody dark in here, Sherlock, why-?”

“Telly.” Sherlock bites the ‘t’ before he settles back into Thinking Pose.

“. _..just released the victim’s name, Basil Rathborne, who was shot last night in a fashion remarkably similar to PM Ronald Adair a few months, whose murder was deemed the work of a sniper. Police say that no clear links between the two victims has yet been found, but the investigation is ongoing…_ ”

“That’s two blocks down from Mary’s place.” He feels the blood draining from his head.

“Indeed,” replies Sherlock, utterly bored.

“Coincidence?” John asks, biting his thumbnail.

“No such thing.” With a snap of his fingers, the detective leaps to his feet like a panther. But not without some stiffness. Not the same as before. “Moran is onto me, and now he tries to draw me into the open.”

“How does that involve Mary?”

“Course not. He wanted her cohabitant.”

“But she doesn’t have one, I was- _oh_.”

Sherlock barely stifles an indignant huff. But he does. He also seizes his mobile and begins texting like a madman. “I'm telling Lestrade to keep a lookout for a .338 Lapua Magnum, just to confirm that it is him and not some copycat. Obviously I can't leave at the moment; that would rather shatter the facade that I am in fact dead. But still: doesn’t know you came over here five days ago. Oh, my Lord, how insipid a man. Easy to see why Moriarty shot himself rather than-.”

“Shall I go to Tesco’s?” asks John, abruptly starting for the kitchen. “We’re out of… things.” The kettle shrieks a broken cry.

No answer. Sherlock and mobile have become one.

That is, until John tramps back down the stairs dressed and shaven, his hand reaching for the doorknob. “Wait.”

The detective lies perfectly still on the couch, holding the mobile over his statuesque face with surgical concentration. His thumbs fly over the keypad like little mice until suddenly they stop their skitter. Sherlock puts it away and glides toward John. His pale eyes fix upon the doctor. “Use this phone.” It’s a disposable mobile, shiny hard plastic.

“Why?”

“A precaution. Harder to trace. Don’t worry about your other, I’m switching it off now.” And sure enough, John’s other mobile is in the detective’s hands.

John rolls his eyes, not bothering to retrieve it. “Git.”

The detective shrugs. “Use this card too. Has your name, but it’s linked to a different account. And don’t go to the Tesco nearby; even someone as dull as Moran will put the pieces together then. And take the most roundabout way possible. Mrs. Hudson can lead you to the backdoor-”

“Sherlock.” John raises his eyebrows, his lips spreading into an amused grin.

He waits for the sulk and the spitting retort. Instead the detective gives an eerily neutral look. “Take care, John.”

That makes John pause. In the other corner of the shadow room, the telly correspondent interviews bystanders scared out of their minds. Outside the traffic rumbles, but in not quite the same way. In the air quivers the troubling awareness that someone (only the residents of 221B knew who) has the power to make every man and woman’s breath their last. London is not living in terror, but it is becoming more and more unnerved.

And above him, the board-stiff consulting detective stares at John like his life depends on it.

 

_Oh._

 

Well.

 

“I once invaded Afghanistan, you know.” John licks his lips, trying to smile.

The detective releases a dramatic sigh. “How incredibly reassuring.”

* * *

 

_At least he cares._

* * *

 

John wanders the Tesco aisles with vague awareness. He passes by the milk twice before he remembers they’re out. _They._

 

 _Don’t think about it._ John shakes his head roughly before the mists start rolling in. _Soldier on, John. Roll with the tide, let it carry you wherever it goes._

“Whee!” A tittering voice followed a baby laugh. In the middle of the store by the diapers and baby food, a smiling father holds up a pink-cheeked infant and lightly tosses him in the air. “Whee!” Up and down. Up and down.

John feels something crash inside himself.

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t sleep,” remarks Sherlock a morning later.

The telly blares again, reporting with more details about the third sniper shot, this time during the daytime. The mayor has declared a state of emergency. Silent panic had now seized London.

John slumps into a kitchen chair, blinking his bleary eyes slowly. “Nah,” he admits.

The clicking mobile keypads stop clicking. He hardly ever puts the mobile down anymore. Sherlock looks up sharply. His eyes look especially icy this morning. “Your lids are swollen. More than usual.”

 _Shit._ “Allergies.”

“You don’t have any.”

“Developing one to you then.”

“John-”

“Leave it. I’m fine.”

John gets up abruptly and throws bread in the toaster, wondering which body part the detective would deduce next to discover his fits and flails, his fists gripping the sheets, and the dark stains he found in his pillows this morning.

 

* * *

 

_Is there any going back?_

* * *

 

_Crash!_

John freezes at the door. The bag of laundry falls onto the carpet without a sound. “...Sherlock?” he finally musters the courage to say.

 _Crash!_ “In here, John!” comes a call from the kitchen.

Too bad John can’t go there; a car has just smashed into his neuroskeleton.

_Crash!_

“Will you stop that!” John finally brings himself to cry.

It stops. Out pokes a mop of slick curls from the kitchen archway. “Shh!” Sherlock grumbles. “Voice down.”

“You shh!” snarls John though in hushed tones. “Stop...smashing things!”

“Not until you admit it.”

“Admit what!?”

“That something is bothering you.”

“Yeah, there bloody is” he snarls. His fists shake but hopefully it looks like it’s out of anger. “I’m bothered about you smashing our dishware all over our kitchen.”

Sherlock sniffs, but lowers the plate onto the counter. “Alright.”

John turns on his heel and stomps back to the door to pick up the laundry bag- _Whomp!_

Everything floods out of John.

A bag of flour lays prostrate at Sherlock’s feet. The pale icy eyes fix on John, watching him like a hawk, studying him. It hits John like a double-decker bus.

“ _You’re- you’re-_ ” chokes the doctor. “You’re _experimenting_ with me.”

“You said it doesn’t bother you,” replies the detective with a shrug. No expression in that cold, pale face. _Doesn’t care._ “You said you were fine.”

Everything bends over backwards.

His eyes are streaming. His body is shaking. “I need-air,” croaks the doctor. Before I break. Before I smash, crash, crack into a thousand pieces.

_\-- smashing on the pavement into a thousand, thousand pieces --_

“John, wait-!”

“ _FUCK YOU!_ ” John slams the door. He gives no fucks about the neighbors suddenly griping in protest as he hurtles down the stairs. He needs to get out. He needs to get out. He needs to go and get as far away from Baker Street as he can, as far away from that sick heartwrenching madman upstairs.

He rips open the doors and hurls into the street. Only to pause. Where to go? What’s the fastest way to escape a Holmes-

“JOHN!”

_BANG!_

John hardly has time to blink as some tremendous force heaves him back into the dark, making him fall back on the tile with a groan as the door slams shut.

For several moments, John, sprawled on his back panting, does not realize that there are two people drawing heavy breaths in the darkened hall.

A figure stands by the door unmoving, his dark shoulders rising and falling with every breath. His profile is illuminated by yellow streetlight peeking through the windows over the doorframe: Sherlock. And he is absolutely livid.

“Don’t you ever,” snarls the detective, his voice raw and savage, “ _ever_ do something that idiotic again. _Do you understand_?”

John gulps in air, trying to calm his pounding heart.

“ _DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?”_

He stares agape at the man above him; he is white as sheet, his face contorted savagely, and his eyes sparking like flaming coals. A “yes” falls from John’s lips simply out of shock.

Never before he has seen Sherlock lose control.

Terrifying is too weak a word for it.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock had a suspicion before that Moran had figured it out. He let John go out and back to do the laundry to provide confirmation to Moran, knowing that if the sniper had any brain in his head (and he has some), he’d let the pair go in and out for a while, let them get cocky and careless until one lined up perfectly in his straights. John happened to provide the opportunity tonight.

Allowing Sherlock to spring the trap.

John watches agog from the window as about half of Scotland Yard suddenly floods the building across from: police cars, ambulances, army jeeps, even two helicopters. Jesus, it’s basically an insurgency.

At long last, a dozen policemen with assault rifles emerge, followed by of a handcuffed, short-shaven man in a white-tee shirt. His thick arms are gripped by two policemen, and the man snarls at their touch. One of those detectives is a silver-haired Lestrade, beaming like it’s Christmas.

A breath falls out of John that he did not know he was holding.

Sherlock watches from the other window. “The rifle they’re carrying out under wraps” - a long misshapen object wrapped in a garbage bag - “is an Accuracy International AWM. The bullets will match to the ones he used during his service in Afghanistan. He was discharged but never went to prison. Smoothed his passage between countries, I’m sure. He was a most useful tool to Moriarty.”

“Two psychopathic peas in a pod,” quips John, frowning. Before he is shoved into the police car, Moran whips his head up at the windows of 221B. The glare he throws could strip bones.

John barely stifles his shudder.

The circus begins to dissipate, vehicle by vehicle.

“Drug user too,” says Sherlock all of a sudden. “He’s got all the look of an addict. Cocaine most likely; keeps him sharp and focused.”

The kitchen floor is covered in plates fragments, along with the sagging bag of flour, which spattered white powder all over the floor. “Sure you’d two get along quite nicely.”

Sherlock turns around at John’s bite, but the doctor is already marching upstairs.

 

* * *

 

_Come along John!_

_\- no no not again please no -_

_God no._

_\- hurtling after the figure in the dark -_

_Come on, keep up!_

_I’d be lost..._

_\- into the blinding gray and John is running like all ways, he doesn’t want to run, but the dream drags him along -_

_Please._

_\- no it’s different this time, because John’s not looking up, he’s looking down on the street, he’s on the rooftop now, looking down at the pavement -_

_Please do this for me._

_\- and he sees Sherlock and it’s dark and they’re not on the rooftop anymore and -_

_BANG!_

_\- the man collapses, the coat simply crumbles to the ground like blackened ash and his eyes are glassy and -_

_John…._

_\- John reaches out to the ash but he can’t reach and from the very top of his lungs he’s screaming no no no no -_

_John…_

_\- he’s gone again -_

_John…_

_\- I’ve failed him again -_

_John._

_John._

“John, wake up!”

His body’s being jostled, shaken by a pair of powerful hands belonging to a pale wraith-like-

_Oh._

"You...you were shouting.” Sherlock's pale eyes flicker up and down John’s body, which suddenly burns with shame. “In your sleep. It was a nightmare. I think.”

_I think?_

“ _Get- get-_ ” John wants to say get out, but his throat is like sandpaper. “Water,” he finally croaks.

The detective flees the room like a phantom, his silken blue dressing gown whipping out behind him. John blinks, wondering if he was ever there. By the time he hoists himself to a seated position, Sherlock leaps into the room, holding a paper cup. John gulps it down without a word.

“...How often?”

“How often what?” John wipes away the clearish-yellow goo pouring out of his nose. No, he will not, _will not_ break down in front of Sherlock Holmes.

“How often do the nightmares come?”

John shuffles his feet.“They’re not bad, usually.”  _I bet I’m repulsive to him._

“You haven’t slept well since I returned.” Sherlock stares at him as if he’s trying to ignite the sheets. It may just work. “Rarely did you come downstairs awake and alert. And every time something falls or cracks-”

“Don’t…don't say those words.”

“That’s precisely my point, John.” Sherlock sucks in through his teeth, balling his hands into fists. “And then you go off and nearly get yourself shot, in precisely the way I worked hard to prevent. Do you understand how much of a catastrophic waste you nearly made of all of my work tonight?”

John slumps down onto the bed. “Sorry about your precious fucking work, but I really can’t give a shit.”

“John.”

“Bug off.”

The room is dark, but from the vague glow of city traffic outside, Sherlock’s eyes have blown as wide as dinner plates. His muscles are visibly locked into place. The angel pink lips hover just barely apart. “He almost...I almost lost you. Again.”

 _I almost lost you._ Not _you almost died._ Not _you almost got yourself killed._ Sherlock almost lost John.

What if he was a fraction of a second too late? What if John was half a centimeter closer to the bullet’s hurtling path? John’s no Sherlock, but he’s no dope either. He’d come across snipers in Afghanistan, and you don’t forget a bullet like that, or the holes they made. A 9x19 Parabellum (the cartridge used in John’s pistol) doesn’t come close to 338 Lapua Magnum (the cartridges that Moran likely used). They make his P226 look like a blunt pen-knife.

If Moran had the doctor in his crosshairs, as he stood at the base of St. Barts, John hadn’t a chance in hell of surviving. Let alone if he knew where Moran was hiding. Let alone if he knew that Moran was there in the first place.

_No chance. There was no other way._

And that explains the rages, John realizes, and the moments where Sherlock just completely lost it. For Moriarty sneered the threat, but it was Moran who ultimately held John’s life by a string. He was the one with the finger on the trigger. He was the one who could’ve killed John.

And as much as Sherlock called the man ‘dull’ and ‘insipid’, it is impossible that he ever, ever forgot that.

 

_There was no other way._

 

And the fog lifts. The dreamworld ends and John is no longer going through the motions of life. He is no longer a ship rolling on the sea, holding tight and sailing blind as wave after wave batters his hull. No, he sits on the edge of the bed in the dark and Sherlock is there too, and it hammers John in the head that he is there. He is alive. His blood is hot. his heart is beating. He is really, really, _really. Not. Dead._

"John?"

He comes apart.

Ages pass by, with John burying his face into the already-dampened pillow, his body wracked with sobs as everything, everything pours out, and Sherlock watching it all in petrified silence. Ages pass before John stops his sob. His body has run out of tears to shed.

The silence that falls between them is cavernous.

 

“John.”

Relief, at last. The doctor releases a shaky breath. “Yea?”

The dark man has taken a seat at the edge of the bed, hands pressed to his thighs, every part of him locked into place. “...Would you like me to stay?”

 _Hold me. Leave! Get out! No, bring me into you, keep me warm. No! Don’t see me like this! Go away!  
_ “Not if you don’t want to.”

Sherlock’s gaze is fixed to the floorboards. “I asked what you want.”

Silence falls once more. John bites his lip. The word pops out against his will. “Stay."

And before John can fix it, explain himself away, the consulting detective bobs his head. _Ok._

John’s body slides boneless down on the mattress. The impossible man in the dressing gown stands but once more looks baffled.   
“...Where would you like me to be?”

“Wherever you’re comfortable,” John replies with a shrug.

“John.”

“Fine. Beside me. Bed.” He winces. “That came out wrong.”

Sherlocks makes no comment. In gingerly movements, he sets himself down on the other side of the bed, hoisting one spindly leg at a time. Then after a test wiggle, he knits his hand together on his stomach and relaxes onto the covers. His face never breaks throughout the process.

John rolls on his side, only to have awkwardness seize him - _Sherlock in his bed Sherlock in bed beside him_ \- within minutes. “Erm, do-do you want to bring in a book or something?”

A snort in the dark. “A reading light interferes with the melatonin production process that lets your body sleep. Honestly, John, are you a doctor or not?”

That draws gasping chuckle from the doctor. Silence falls.

“John?”

“Mm?”

“You said we fit together before. But do we...work together?”

Ice pours into John’s veins. “Talk more tomorrow, no tonight.”

Sherlock’s silence steals the air from his lungs. “Alright…”

“All relationships require work,” John add hastily. “They need care and maintenance to keep on going. You need to communicate, but not be clingy. You need to be consistent, but also ready for spontaneity..”

He hear the detective frowning. “Precisely I avoided things like this before.”

“Are you walking away now, then?”

“When did I ever say that?”

Silence again.

“...Sherlock?”

“No, yes, no.”

“‘Why do you wince as you lie down’ is not a yes-no question.”

“Oh.” John imagines those lips puckering into an ‘o’. “No, it isn’t.”

Lights flicker lazily over the dresser from the traffic outside. “It’s been bothering you since you’ve come home,” the doctors murmurs. “Recent wound?”

No reply.

“If you’re hiding things from me already...”

The man beside him audibly sags. _Centimeters away. Sherlock is mere centimeters away._ “Tomorrow. Not before then.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“And I, you.”

Silence.

“What did you think I was asking you?”

“Oh. If erm, I’d ever...been with someone.”

“Ah…” John did not think of that, but now it seems like a very good thing to ask. “Well, have you?”

Every second John waits rakes his soul. “...No.” Sherlock’s voice is barely audible. “But yes, someday, I think I’d... But not just yet.”

John bobs his head. “...Alright.” His head nuzzles into the pillow until he finds a comfortable spot. “That’s fine.” _You are beside me, our legs mere centimeters away, as I am about to fall asleep. That’s perfectly, perfectly fine._

Sherlock gives a grunt of affirmation. “Someday, though.” There’s an urgency in his voice.

“Whenever you feel you’re ready, I’ll be too.” John smiles faintly. “We have a while.” _Forever._

“...Alright.”

And they fall silent again. But it is a soothing silence, not grating or demanding. It is punctuated by rumbling cars passing just outside the apartment wall, and the occasional rasp of two sets of breathing patterns.

“I’m sorry for shouting.”

“John.” The doctor can hear the smile in the sweet baritone voice. “It’d be more alarming if you ever stopped shouting at me.”

“Alright.” John’s lips crack as they spread into a grin. “Goodnight then, Sherlock.”

“Goodnight, John. Tomorrow.”

 

And the frost finishes its thaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done. I have finally shut up and now take my bow and leave. (EDIT Dec. 11, 2013: author is liar liar pants on fire.)
> 
> ...while waiting for series 3....*flails dramatically in a seal-like fashion.*
> 
> Thank you all for following this story all the way to end. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing it!


	8. Ever After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, author, am a big fat liar.

* * *

 

In the days after, Sherlock sits.

He does not eat.  
He occasionally sleeps.  
But that's far from unusual. For him, at least.  
And when he does sleep, there is someone beside him, whose snores can (and often do) drown out the chimes of Big Ben.

Outside, London goes about its daily business. People walking, chattering on phones, catching cabs, and on occasion getting killed. Par for the course, statistically speaking.

Before him John sits cross-legged in the old tattered armchair, squinting at an unfolded newspaper while he brings a teacup to his lips. He curls his bare toes on the old rug. They are turning purple, but John is not bothered. His bright blue eyes are looking at . . . Sherlock.

The consulting detective whips his gaze away. An eyebrow lifts on the veteran's face."What?" he asks with a smirk.

Sherlock shrugs nonchalantly. "You."

John grins, and it brightens the room with the force of a thousand galaxies.

 

_All is well._

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k, couldn't stop myself from going in full circle. We're really, really done now.  
> thanks everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> After great pain a formal feeling comes--  
> The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;  
> The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?  
> And yesterday--or centuries before?
> 
> The feet, mechanical, go round  
> A wooden way  
> Of ground, or air, or ought,  
> Regardless grown,  
> A quartz contentment, like a stone.
> 
> This is the hour of lead  
> Remembered if outlived,  
> As freezing persons recollect the snow--  
> First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
> 
> _\--Emily Dickinson_
> 
>    
>  **TRIGGER WARNING** : This story is about a man grieving and falling into depression. There is a funeral, a graveyard visit, the recollection of Sherlock's bloody death, and contemplation of suicide by gun. Please DO NOT read this work if these are triggers for you.
> 
> Worked super hard on this fic. Thanks ahead of time for any feedback you leave!


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